[music]

Speaker: Can this patient still be saved? Wall Street is bankrupt. The Neoliberal American model failed. The financial crisis causes plummeting stocks and massive layoffs.

Willem: Greed is a given. You cannot work on the assumption. You're going to tell people to be less greedy. You simply want to make it harder for people to act upon that greed in a way that will harm others.

Speaker: Is the world ready for a new economic supermodel?

Parag: Very much.

Amy: It depends.

Willem: No.

Speaker: The experts disagree. What are the alternatives for a stable future? Backlight presents three models.

Marcelo: My name is Marcelo Neri.

Kishore: My name is Kishore Mahbubani.

Wouter: My name is Wouter Bos.

Speaker: Which model is the most stable one? Which model shows most solidarity, is most democratic, and most sustainable? An expert jury will judge the three candidates.

Marcelo: My name is Marcelo Neri.

Kishore: My name is Kishore Mahbubani.

Boss: My name is Wouter Bos.

Speaker: What will be the new global supermodel? Who will be the winner?

Speaker: The World's Next Supermodel.

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We present the jury. She is specialized in international business transactions, ethnic conflicts, and globalization. Her book, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall brought her international acknowledgment. She is an economist and professor at the prestigious Yale Law School in New Haven. Amy Chua, born in Champaign, Illinois, daughter of Chinese immigrant.

He is the new American wonder boy when it comes to analyzing global issues, WIRED magazine ranked him first on the list of the 15 smartest Americans to whom Obama should listen. His reflections are being published worldwide from the New York Times [unintelligible 00:02:28] from the Guardian to India Today. His book, The Second World: Empires and Influences in The New Global Order was translated in more than 10 languages. Parag Khanna, born in India and raised in Dubai, Germany, and the United States.

The star economist of the Netherlands but without Dutch citizenship, taught at the universities of Yale, Princeton and Cambridge was chief economist of the European Bank for reconstruction and development, and member of the monetary committee of the Bank of England, a regular visitor of the World bank, IMF and the European Commission. Willem Buiter, born in The Hague, professor at the renowned London School of Economics.

Speaker: Do you foresee the American system to collapse?

Parag: I don't believe that it will collapse by any means because of its population size. It will always remain a giant consumer on global proportions and it has a very high per capita income. It is always going to be a major anchor of the global economy, but it will no longer be the anchor and that is official as of this year.

Speaker: Would you call it the system crisis?

Willem: Oh yes. Not just the system crisis, the system has collapsed. We no longer have a system.

Amy: If you are talking about the economic and international policies pursued by the Bush administration for the last eight years, I think we absolutely need a new economic supermodel.

Speaker: It is high time to put the jury to work.

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Kishore: My name is Kishore Mahbubani and I'm the author of the new book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.

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I believe that we have a new model of development emerging in the world, the Asian model of development, which explains the most spectacular economic success story ever seen in human history with billions of people enjoying the fruits of development. The Asian model has the potential to be the most enduring model because from the year one to the year 1820, the two largest economies of the world were consistently China and India, and we are now returning to that norm.

[music]

The Asian model will prove to be more stable over the long term because it combines a certain degree of cultural resilience together with the western pillars of wisdom. The Asian societies believe in free markets but they also believe that markets operate well when you are good regulators too. In Asia, we believe you need to balance free markets and good governance. The Asian model will prove to be more socially stable because it is trying very hard to reach all layers of society. The reason why you have this explosion of Asian growth is because billions of people at the bottom now have the opportunity to develop themselves.

[music].

On the political side, the Asian story is a complex one. You have democracies like India which are succeeding, and you have non-democracies like China which are succeeding. It shows that the story is one that is diverse and complex, and worth studying in detail. Many Asian leaders realize that in the new model of development, you have to be environmentally sustainable. The winner of the Nobel Prize, Mr. Pachauri is an Indian. In China, the Chinese leaders realize that you have to emphasize environmental sustainability. Asia, because it is so culturally diverse can handle cultural diversity much better than the west can or perhaps Latin America can. The fact that Asia can handle different cultures will provide a model for us as we move into a multi-civilizational world. By 2020, you will see clearly that the Asian century has arrived. The most optimistic young people in the world today are young Asians and they will make sure that tomorrow belongs to them.

[music]

Willem: Complete hogwash.

Parag: I can buy parts of it.

Amy: It's a fascinating viewpoint, but I would have to say that I just fundamentally disagree.

Parag: When he talks about the tremendous economic growth story of Asia up, until 10 years ago, most people attributed Asian growth simply to the factor of demographics, the number of bodies entering the workforce, and the ability to produce for a global market in the context of liberalization. It wasn't necessarily a story of ingenuity or inputs of innovation but rather just labor, labor, labor. Now, today, people are questioning to what extent there is an Asian model beyond simply labor inputs?

Willem: This is social-cultural snake oil. First of all, there's no such thing as Asia. A whole bunch of countries, some of which are doing badly, some of which are doing very well. The reason that indeed this century is likely to be an Asian century is because two countries that have done nothing for several hundred years and have stagnated and happened to be the country with the biggest population, India and China, have managed to get themselves together to the point that they can import Western technology and production techniques, as well as some of the management and governance styles. As a result, can catch up to the levels of productivity and well-being that are taken for granted in the west.

Parag: India is innovating in certain, biotechareas. China is borrowing Western technology very heavily to promote its own companies or buying Western companies. Japan has been, for decades, a significant innovator, again kick-started by Western technology and government support. It's actually a very diverse picture as to whether or not there is a single Asian model. There really isn't just one. Asia is most definitely succeeding because of a combination of these factors.

Amy: The economic models that India is pursuing and that China is pursuing, I think are really, it's like apples and oranges. I would say that I have a very different take on what the Chinese model is, and I'm a tremendous fan of China, obviously being of Chinese heritage. I see the Chinese model as being essentially capitalism with mild political liberalization, but really an authoritarian government.

Willem: It's very great as a catch-up model, but once you're at the frontier in a mature economy, you have to start innovating, experimenting then these autocratic crazy totalitarian models, all fall by the wayside. Also, terribly boring places to live.

Parag: He talks about the resilience of Asian societies. Of course, Western societies have proven to be the most resilient in a way ever since the Renaissance really in terms of the various forms of capitalism, social democracy, types of production, industries of growth since the industrial revolution and now, the technological, the information revolution. These have, of course, begun in the West, so it's hard to say that the Western societies are less resilient. Obviously, Western societies are extremely resilient, and it will take a long time for other societies to prove greater resilience than the West has demonstrated over the last several hundred years.

Amy: I think the way that China has partly been able to be so successful is by harnessing nationalism, Chinese nationalism. The Chinese are really sensitive about Western imperialism, the unequal treaties, so by very cleverly portraying democracy and human rights as something that the Western imperialists are trying to impose on China. I think that the Chinese government has managed to change the terms of the debate so that you have a lot of Chinese wanting to see China rise again. I'm very susceptible to this myself. They play on 5,000 years of history, and the tiger will rise again. We're not going to let these Western imperialists trick us with democracy, but that's to me, not such a stable model and not such an admirable model.

Willem: The notion of, because Asia is being able to handle cultural and racial diversity, there are no more xenophobic countries in the world than China and Japan, for instance. India is very diverse, of course. It has such massive internal political problems, ranging from caste to race, color, religion, language, and it's also, of course, one of the most inegalitarian countries in the world. China, from being rather egalitarian in economic sense under communism has moved rapidly to become one of the most inegalitarian countries in the world. Spectacular growth, but spectacular inequality.

Amy: Recently, I asked some friends in China, "Could a Caucasian person from the United States or Europe become a Chinese citizen?" I asked lawyers and judges, and nobody could answer this question. It had never occurred to anybody, a White person become a Chinese citizen.

Parag: If one looks at the extent to which people at the bottom in whether it's Indonesia, or China, Thailand, other countries have, in fact, been pulled up in an amazing, astounding rate. I think that is really one of the true strength of the Asian model today.

Amy: Tremendous strides economically. Unbelievable. I totally agree with the work ethic, the cultural attributes that I admire very much, but I don't agree that this is the more sustainable model that is almost like a contained populism, contained democracy through nationalism.

Willem: The green solution. No two countries that are more brown and gray than China and India. Just go to these places, you can't even breathe. In Shanghai, they had to stop industry for several months to let the Olympics take place. Deforestation and desertification, they have a huge local environmental problem in India and China.

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Marcelo: My name is Marcelo Neri. I am Chief Economist of the Center for Social Policies here at Fundação Getulio Vargas. It's a think tank located in Rio. Brazil is pursuing a middle path, not so much to the Washington Consensus liberal approach, not so much to Hugo Chavez's socialist approach, it is pro-market but also pro-poor. The key elements are pragmatism, but not only to economic efficiency but also to social justice and sustainability. Brazil is no Asian tiger. We don't even have tigers around here. Brazil is more a whale country. Big, fat. We travel long distance, and we are able to cope with hardship. I think each country has its own model. Our is a result of our history. Brazil has a self-made model.

Brazil is well-equipped to deal with the economic crisis. Our production basis is well diversified. Our internal market is strong. Also, we are not a credit-based economy, so external shocks and credit crunches will not hit us as bad.

Speaker: Hola.

Marcelo: Brazil is a mature democracy now. We passed recently the ultimate test of having a left-wing government respecting both markets operation and the constitution. Lula is not Chavez. In Brazil, we found that we don't have to make a choice between state and the market, but rather bring solidarity into markets, and not to protect the poor from markets but rather include them.

Brazil has also instruments, traditional ones such as unemployment insurance, but also more interesting ones that combine safety nets with economic trampolines that raises people's standard of living in the long run. Perhaps the most interesting way to fight poverty in Brazil is Bolsa Família, family stipend. It's targeted the poorest of the poor. It reaches 25% of the Brazilian population, around 50 million people. All we ask in return for this $50 per month transfer is that families put their children in school, to do their health checks, and this helps them so much in terms of their day by day, helps also the economy. This program has been exported to other countries such as India and New York.

Brazil is well-known for devastating its forest, but I believe we have learned from other countries' mistakes and our own mistakes. We have an agenda that includes biofuels, ethanol, and imposing restriction for devastating the forest. Assessing a country is not only about economics and facts, but how people live there. In fact, the Gallup World Poll shows that no one is more optimistic than Brazilian when it comes to their own life in the future. We believe that life is like playing soccer, where winning is not the most important thing but how beautifully you play and enjoying the game.

The main problem of Brazil is that we are still very inefficient and very unequal. On the other hand, our opportunities rely in fighting these two fronts simultaneously. I believe that no other country in the world can deliver more higher pro-poor growth than Brazil. Brazil is not growing as much as China, but the poorest segment of the Brazilian population is going at the Chinese growth rates. Besides that, we are not devastating the environment, and we are a democracy. In this sense, our growth rate is better than theirs. Until recently, Brazil could be considered a problematic country for good reasons, but in the course of the last decades, first in the '80s,we become a democratic country. In the '90s, we stabilized the economy. We had until then the highest inflation in the world. In the current decade, we have been able to reduce inequality in a quite sharp way. We have just set targets for 2022 to achieve Western-European quality of education levels observe it today. If we are able to deliver that I'm sure we will be a much better country then.

Willem: That's it.

Amy: Very appealing.

Willem: A good case is not strengthened by overstating it.

Parag: I agree with everything that Dr. Neri has said. I'm a big fan of what Brazil has accomplished. Remember that not all models are transferable, and he insisted rightly that Brazil is in a unique situation.

Willem: Brazil is a West European style social democracy in terms of governments but in a country that's much poorer and much more corrupt than most European countries. They have the best government today under Lula that they've had since I first started following the country.

Amy: Just to disclose, I have been a fan of Lula's approach. I think it's right. It's a middle way. It's not Chavez, or Evo Morales and Bolivia. It's not just kind of cowboy capitalism, either. I think it is an interesting model. What struck me most, and I don't think I necessarily disagree with him is, maybe part of the problem is it having one Washington consensus or one cookie-cutter model. While this model is extremely appealing, it is not going to be applicable to all the nations of the world. There are things that the United States could learn from it for certain neighborhoods but there was simply no way practically speaking that the United States would adopt this model in its entirety. It's just as he says, it's culturally contingent.

Parag: It's a very unique situation. Brazil finally under Lula has really managed to take advantage of good policies, democracy, large budgets, generous social spending, and a very clever strategy. They send riverboats up the Amazon to provide medical supplies to people. The Bolsa Família program provides credits to low-income people in Favelas, to send their children to school, and to pay for food. There's a lot of unique strategies that are being deployed in Brazil very creatively. He's right to say that they're not copying one model or the other model.

Amy: What are the things wrong with the model? Technological innovation, for example. This is not a model that will produce great technological innovation.

Speaker: Why not?

Amy: First, it's not an immigration model. It doesn't attract the best and brightest mathematicians everywhere to Brazil. Secondly, the social expenditures are really on poor education, and maybe over 100 years, that will lead to more innovation, but not in any realistic medium-term range. It's just not devotion to R&D, the way that the Asia model is doing, or Silicon Valley in the United States.

Willem: Even though Brazil through prudent monetary fiscal policies was actually running current account of trade surpluses in the last two years leading up to the crisis, it turns out that the industry was highly exposed to international capital markets. It has a lot of foreign currency debt. They are getting hammered by the world crisis.

Speaker: In spite of what he says?

Willem: Oh yes, their terms of trade have collapsed, the value of their exports. They were very much part of the last phase of global financial integration. The Brazilians were all over the world economy. The world economy is all over Brazil. It's not a disaster. This has been in the past for them because their net external position is much more favorable, but they have these huge gross external exposure, so they're getting hit very hard.

Parag: It is one of the most populous countries in the world and has enormous internal inequalities. Those aren't internal inequalities simply as a result of economic structure, its social and geographic, and historical structure, a coastal population, and then the vast interior rural Amazonian tribal population, some elements of which have never even been discovered yet.

Willem: In terms of poverty and inequality, the country is still one of the world leaders in inequality. There have been some improvements, the Bolsa Família is an excellent idea. Cash payment, which is actually Friedman's idea, but contingent on doing human capital formation for the young, education and health.

Amy: This is a very recent experiment and I think the results have been really quite spectacular and impressive, but this remains a country of extraordinary inequality.

Willem: The real weakness is the last point he made which is educational levels are getting to the West European levels. Brazil has universal education and now, it's good that parents get incentivized to send their children to school. What happens to them once they get to school is tragic. The quality of the primary and secondary education achieved by most Brazilians in the state system is appalling, and they're not prepared for the 21st century.

Parag: The trick to successful global governance and development will be not to create a new model, but to take models that work and to spread them around the world. I think Brazil is an ideal model for that.

[music]

Wouter: My name is Wouter Bos. I'm currently the Dutch Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, a leader of the Labour Party. My favorite supermodel is the European model or rather the Northwest European model. It is my favorite model because I believe there's no other model in the world that combines political democracy, solidarity, and prosperity in a way that the European model does. I think over the last crisis, and also looking back at previous crises, one can see that the European economies are very robust and very resilient. I believe it's got to do with the fact that people don't feel left out. They're not out there on their own.

We have systems in place that protect people in uncertain times. I'm very certain, and I believe that also is a main characteristic of the European model, that it's not just competition and self-interest that drives people but that also cohesion and the knowledge that you're protected also in bad times. It's important for people in order to enable them to make a contribution to society. One of the strengths of the European model is that it's not a choice for the markets or the government, but it is a choice for a model in which markets push governments to become more efficient, and governments push markets to be more fair. It's not either/or. It's looking for the right balance between the two. I just can't think of another model that does it the way that we do it.

The European model is a very socially stable model. I believe it is socially stable because the public sector is so crucial in the European model. The public sector is not there for the elite. It's there for everybody. It's not just paid for by the elite. It's paid for by everybody. Everybody feels linked to the public sector. Everybody feels served by the public sector. That's, I believe, is why our model is so stable. The European model is not just an economic model, it's also a political model. It's the interaction between politics and economics that makes it so strong.

For example, we've got a growth and stability pacts that excludes free riders that creates a strong currency that has a European Central Bank as a very strong institution that can act independent of politics. The last thing that you want is politicians deciding about your currency or politicians deciding about interest rates, or politicians deciding that exchange rates. We've left that to an independent institution, and that certainly helps us through this crisis. All the models, including the European model still have a lot to prove. One of the things that they all have to prove is whether they can prove to be green and sustainable in the future. Our starting position certainly should enable us to make it work. The agenda is right. The political majorities are there. It's now a matter of putting our money where our mouth is. The unique characteristics of the European model are all in the balance of things. That sounds incredibly boring, but it works for ordinary people. It means you have political democracy and prosperity. It means you have prosperity and solidarity. It means that you look for fair trade-offs. It means you look for win-win solutions, and you'll see more American models where the market is all and everything. You see other models where everything is expected from states and what we have here in Europeis a balanced solution that shows that you shouldn't look at the extremes of the political discussion, but you should try to find the balance. In the year 2020, President Hillary Clinton and President Lula Jr. will say that, indeed, the Europeans will rise, and they will say that they were glad they listened, and they looked and they learned, and we're all Europeans now.

Amy: Very persuasive, it's a great pitch. I do think it is a bit of a pitch that is-- it glosses over a lot of things.

Parag: I think, towards the end, he pointed to the need to balance between extremes, to regulate between the society, the market and government. I think that Europe really has succeeded in doing that. It's not only individual countries that are doing it. He was talking specifically about Northwestern Europe, but in fact, the entire European Union is gradually becoming representative of this.

I have a friend who says that America has basically one brain located in the Northeast corner of the country, but because of Europe's federative system, you now have 27 brains, each of which can, on a micro-level, experiment with 27 different models in a decentralized fashion but also still have common institutions and common protections and common laws. I think that really he is correct, that the European model has been extremely successful.

Willem: It's a typical dutch social-democrat confusion of how they would like the world to be, how the world ought to be versus how the world is, even at home. Some of what he says makes sense, but a lot of it, I think, is, again, a massive overstatement of the merits of a model. It is true that probably every good system of market governance, economic governance, every good system would be boring, but that doesn't mean that every boring system is necessarily good.

I think that in places like the Netherlands-- When he talks even West European model, it's too general because the UK is in Western Europe, and it is rather different from what he has in mind. Basically, he talks about the Rhineland model, maybe with a few Scandinavians thrown in for good measure. It's a model for-- How would I put it?

Amy: In a way, it comes down to your personal view about what is the good life. I think one thing, for better or worse, that distinguishes United States from Europe is that, at least historically, we'll see if it continues, the United States has really been a much more dynamic economy. That's what it's famous for, the risk-taking, freewheeling, crazy. Now, some could say, "Look what you've come to." We have all these scandals. Now, everybody knows that Europe has its own share of financial and corruption scandals, so I don't know who wins there.

It is true, going back to this question of technological innovation and creativity. If you look at our own immigrants versus Europe's immigrants, I think this highlights another point that is left out. I think it's well-acknowledged that Europe-- What is wonderful about the European Union is that it essentially turned itself into a magnet for nations. "If you adopt these economic and human rights and political policies, you can join us and gain." What it's not so good at is being a magnet for individuals. Europe is famously having a hard time. Countries like Germany, France, getting the best engineers and software people from Korea or China, they still tend to go elsewhere. That means a technological deficit.

Willem: A model for the unambitious, yes. It provides more security, but it provides that security in such a way that striving for excellence, originality is discouraged.

Amy: Specifically, the immigrants in Europe, you do have this problem of assimilation and these enclaves. I'm not quite sure the story he paints about it's all balanced and harmonious, and everybody knows where they are. I don't know that that applies equally. If you were to look at cross-sections of American society, you would see terrible things too, our inner cities, but you would look at some of the immigrants that we're pulling in from Africa, some of the professionals, from India, and you would see a much more appealing story. People coming with just a good brain and a lot of willingness to do hard work, and actually ending up in a pretty short time rising, of course, without the safety nets.

Willem: I think it is a model that strikes the wrong balance between security and opportunity.

Parag: This is problematic. Amy Chua talks about the ability of a society to incorporate immigrants and to leverage its diversity. No country has succeeded at this better than the United States. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and evermore, the demographic composition of the United States is blending into African-American, Latin American, and now, with the first African-American president, and so a very diverse society.

There is a debate and a concern in the United States as to whether this larger and larger immigrant population still coheres into the United States of America. That is the task that the new administration has, to build a common society through infrastructure, through common employment, through social welfare schemes and safety nets, a common purpose, and national culture. That can always be lacking.

Europeans have been on the opposite side in terms of being very protective of that national identity for fear of being diluted. They too need to leverage that diversity and the resources that brings. Think just of Turkey and Ukraine, very populous countries, young, eager, ambitious, energetic, they will be the production engines for European manufacturing. They need to be accepted and embraced for the value that they add to Europe.

Willem: As regards immunity to the recession, you already know the answer to that. It's going to be a close-run thing as to whether the recession in the Euro area, including the Netherlands, will be deeper and longer or not than in the United States. The notion that this system is more stable economically is an unproven, untested assertion.

Speaker: The world's next supermodel. What will be the world's next supermodel?

Amy: They're such different models. The European model is actually, I think, something realistic for the United States to pursue. There's also the rest of the world. The Asian model, I don't quite accept as a model. I think that it's just too difficult to speak of a single Asian model. There's the Singapore-China model, which one might speak of, but it's very different from the Japan model or the Indian model, or the Pakistan model. That would have to be dissected. The Brazilian model is really great food for thought. To me, that is not actually an all-encompassing model, but some features of which should perhaps be integrated into larger models.

Speaker: The world's next supermodel. The jury draws up the balance. What about the three sacred Ps? People, planet, profit.

Parag: Europe actually is the wealthiest single economy in the world. It has the largest GDP per capita.

Amy: In terms of depth and stability of profits, I think the European model is superior. It's an advanced Western economy. If you look at how many companies are making profits, that would be the one, but if you think of overnight fast profits, that's China. China is the place where you're seeing this explosion of profits, some a little shady, I would say.

Speaker: Which of the three models would be most shock-proof?

Willem: Shock-proof, North Korea. If you control everything, you will live at a very low level, but nothing will surprise you. You don't want to live in the most shock-proof environment. You want to strike a balance. You're going to need to take risks. Admittedly, you need mechanisms for sharing the risk. You're protecting the weakest in your society from these risks. That's where, I think, the United States especially has fallen down in a scandalous way. It's ineffective because they actually spend a lot of money, for instance, on health. They spend a lot more money on health than we do as a share of GDP in the Netherlands, but they don't reach everybody with it. That's just a creation of inefficient state management.

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Parag: Europe sets the standard. It has the highest participation in its democratic institutions. Plus, it has multiple layers of democracy beyond the state, substate, state, regional, European level. There's a surplus of democracy, if anything, in Europe at the moment.

Willem: Democracy coexists uneasily both with great inequality, great concentration of wealth and with a very strong and powerful state. That's whatworries me about the West European model that the state is so all-pervasive, so large by any metric, size of GDP that represents the number of jobs it has to offer, the way it can interfere in people's lives, its legal regulatory powers, and that it can ride very easily, I think, over fundamental human rights. One of the things that I disagree with Wouter Bos, the state-- but it can be the solution. It often is part of the problem as well.

Amy: I would say, in terms of people, just the Brazilian model is one that I think admirably, almost for the first time, really tries to put its money where the mouth is. That is, it really tries to not just give the Lyft service to the idea of helping the poor. Everybody does that but it seems like they're really putting their pocketbooks and trying to address the problem of poverty. In that sense, I think that model wins points for people and solidarity.

Parag: People-friendly could be the immigration question in which case America again is the most welcoming of people but in terms of solidarity, of course, it is the European model. It is very unfair to compare the solidarity that Europe has already succeeded at having versus a developing country like China or Brazil where they are attempting to achieve that solidarity. Maybe, they will get there but the task is very, very difficult. Brazil has over 200 million people. China has over 1 billion people. Europe has 400 million people but has had hundreds of years of building towards this solidarity. To the extent that China and Brazil and others are looking at the solidarity that Europe has achieved, that will be very good for them.

Willem: Europe provides you with a higher minimum threshold. For an extremely risk-averse society, that would be the model you'd prefer. You wouldn't want the Asian model either because China now has enormous inequality, no social security, no general availability of public health available to all, education which increasingly has to be paid for, and India is, of course, the home of inequality and poverty.

[music]

You want to live in the richest country because environmental quality is a luxury good. It will be demanded in a representative political process by the people. Most of it is demanded at the moment in Europe and America. A bit less of it but more than in Asia is demanded in Brazil, and Chinese and most Indians are still interested in getting their first iPod.

Parag: The efficiency and innovation that Europe has pioneered in terms of energy and sustainability will prove to be a great asset. On the one hand, a lot of people talk about resource wars, fighting over Middle-Eastern oil and oil in Asia. Europe does not need to be a part of those wars if it pursues the path of sustainability as it is today. Just because it isn't a party to the fight, it doesn't mean that it's a failure. It's not a party to the fight because it's succeeding in limiting its exposure to those liabilities and to the increasing costs of carbon fuels.

Willem: Water is going to be a crucial resource, even more of a break on unbridled development, clean fresh water than carbon-based resources are today. They may well overcome these things but I wouldn't be at all surprised, if during the next few decades, India and China became environmental ecological disasters, as well as imposing huge costs on all of humanity.

Speaker: The world's next supermodel.

Speaker: It is time for the verdict. The jury chooses.

Willem: We're going to choose one.

Amy: This is a great contender.

Willem: I would--

Amy: Very impressive.

Parag: If we're looking to the year 2020--

Amy: Does it have to be from these models?

Willem: I don't think the choice is well defined.

Amy: I think that it's too early to rule out the United States.

Parag: I still think that 10 years from now we'll be picking this model.

Willem: I probably choose the one that they will be developing hereafter now that the old system has collapsed. The new one.

[background noise]

Obama: Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time, but know this America, they will be met, and we are ready to lead once more.

[background noise].

Amy: We have a new administration and a new president. If the United States can actually learn from these other models, that is the internationalism of the European model, the attention to the little guy, and poverty of the Brazilian model, and I don't know what from the Asian model, maybe some of the disciplines, maybe some of the thrift but that's a complicated question because you don't want people not to spend, maybe different features of the Asian model, then I think it's important not to take a very short-term view. To me, it's not clear what 2020 will look like, and I wouldn't write off the United States just yet.

Parag: I think it's going to be what we call the social-democratic capitalism. We see that today, most successful in Europe but we see Asians trying to do it. By the way, I think America is going to try and move in that direction as well.

Willem: Economics is a reflection of wider social trends. I believe that the market economy and capitalism which have survived tensions and dramas, traumas worse even than what we see now will survive. They will survive in a completely changed and adapted form.

Obama: We are ready to lead once more.

[music].

[00:48:18] [END OF AUDIO]