Why Our Education System Sucks

Instead of the mind numbing content presented in our classrooms by teachers who are often hamstrung in how and what they teach (or prevented from teaching), why can’t we have more teachers like this who are told, as Hunter was when he asked as a new teacher what he should do, “What do you want to do?” and be allowed to do it. Yeah, not an effective way to create slaves and drones, but imagine what a country we’d have if every student had only this particular class when they were young.



Transcript::

I'm very fortunate to be here. I feel so fortunate. I've been so impressed by the kindness expressed to me. I called my wife Leslie, and I said, "You know, there's so many good people trying to do so much good. It feels like I've landed in a colony of angels." It's a true feeling. But let me get to the talk -- I see the clock is running.

I'm a public school teacher, and I just want to share a story of my superintendent. Her name is Pam Moran in Albemarle County, Virginia, the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And she's a very high-tech superintendent. She uses smart boards, she blogs, she Tweets, she does Facebook, she does all this sort of high-tech stuff. She's a technology leader and instructional leader. But in her office there's this old wooden, weather-worn table, kitchen table -- peeling green paint, it's kind of rickety. And I said, "Pam, you're such a modern, cutting-edge person. Why is this old table in your office?"

And she told me, she said, "You know, I grew up in Southwestern Virginia, in the coal mines and the farmlands of rural Virginia, and this table was in my grandfather's kitchen. And we'd come in from playing, he'd come in from plowing and working, and we'd sit around that table every night. And as I grew up, I heard so much knowledge and so many insights and so much wisdom come out around this table, I began to call it the wisdom table. And when he passed on, I took this table with me and brought it to my office, and it reminds me of him. It reminds me of what goes on around an empty space sometimes." The project I'm going to tell you about is called the World Peace Game, and essentially it is also an empty space. And I'd like to think of it as a 21st century wisdom table, really.

It all started back in 1977. I was a young man, and I had been dropping in and out of college. And my parents were very patient, but I had been doing intermittent sojourns to India on a mystical quest. And I remember the last time I came back from India -- in my long white flowing robes and my big beard and my John Lennon glasses, and I said to my father, "Dad, I think I've just about found spiritual enlightenment." He said, "Well there's one more thing you need to find." I said, "What is that, dad?" "A job." (Laughter) And so they pleaded with me to get a degree in something. So I got a degree and it turned out to be education. It was an experimental education program. It could have been dentistry, but the word "experimental" was in it, and so that's what I had to go for.

And I went in for a job interview in the Richmond Public Schools in Virginia, the capital city, bought a three-piece suit -- my concession to convention, kept my long beard and my afro and my platform shoes -- at the time it was the 70s -- and I walked in, and I sat down and had an interview. And I guess they were hard up for teachers, because the supervisor, her name was Anna Aro, said I had the job teaching gifted children. And I was so shocked, so stunned, I got up and said, "Well, thank you, but what do I do?" (Laughter) Gifted education hadn't really taken hold too much. There weren't really many materials or things to use. And I said, "What do I do?" And her answer shocked me. It stunned me. Her answer set the template for the entire career I was to have after that. She said, "What do you want to do?" And that question cleared the space. There was no program directive, no manual to follow, no standards in gifted education in that way. And she cleared such a space, that I endeavored from then on to clear a space for my students, an empty space, whereby they could create and make meaning out of their own understanding.

So this happened in 1978, and I was teaching many years later, and a friend of mine introduced me to a young filmmaker. His name is Chris Farina. Chris Farina is here today at his own cost. Chris, could you stand up and let them see you -- a young, visionary filmmaker who's made a film. (Applause) This film is called "World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements." He proposed the film to me -- it's a great title. He proposed the film to me, and I said, "Yeah, maybe it'll be on local TV, and we can say hi to our friends." But the film has really gone places. Now it's still in debt, but Chris has managed, through his own sacrifice, to get this film out. So we made a film and it turns out to be more than a story about me, more than a story about one teacher. It's a story that's a testament to teaching and teachers. And it's a beautiful thing.

And the strange thing is, when I watch the film -- I have the eerie sensation of seeing it -- I saw myself literally disappear. What I saw was my teachers coming through me. I saw, my geometry teacher in high school, Mr. Rucell's wry smile under his handlebar mustache. That's the smile I use -- that's his smile. I saw Jan Polo's flashing eyes. And they weren't flashing in anger, they were flashing in love, intense love for her students. And I have that kind of flash sometimes. And I saw Miss Ethel J. Banks who wore pearls and high-heels to elementary school every day. And you know, she had that old-school teacher stare. You know the one. (Laughter) "And I'm not even talking about you behind me, because I've got eyes in the back of my head." (Laughter) You know that teacher? I didn't use that stare very often, but I do have it in my repertoire. And Miss Banks was there as a great mentor for me.

And then I saw my own parents, my first teachers. My father, very inventive, spacial thinker. That's my brother Malcolm there on the right. And my mother, who taught me in fourth grade in segregated schools in Virginia, who was my inspiration. And really, I feel as though, when I see the film -- I have a gesture she does, like this -- I feel like I am a continuation of her gesture. I am one of her teaching gestures. And the beautiful thing was, I got to teach my daughter in elementary school, Madeline. And so that gesture of my mother's continues through many generations. It's an amazing feeling to have that lineage. And so I'm here standing on the shoulders of many people. I'm not here alone. There are many people on this stage right now.

And so this World Peace Game I'd like to tell you about. It started out like this: it's just a four-foot by five-foot plywood board in an inner-city urban school, 1978. I was creating a lesson for students on Africa. We put all the problems of the world there, and I thought, let's let them solve it. I didn't want to lecture or have just book reading. I wanted to have them be immersed and learn the feeling of learning through their bodies. So I thought, well they like to play games. I'll make something -- I didn't say interactive. We didn't have that term in 1978 -- but something interactive. And so we made the game, and it has since evolved to a four-foot by four-foot by four-foot Plexiglass structure. And it has four Plexiglass layers.

There's an outer space layer with black holes and satellites and research satellites and asteroid mining. There's an air and space level with clouds that are big puffs of cotton we push around and territorial air spaces and air forces, a ground and sea level with thousands of game pieces on it -- even an undersea level with submarines and undersea mining. There are four countries around the board. The kids make up the names of the countries -- some are rich some are poor. They have different assets, commercial and military. And each country has a cabinet. There's a prime minister, secretary of state, minister of defense and a CFO, or comptroller. I choose the prime minister based on my relationship with them. I offer them the job, they can turn it down, and then they choose their own cabinet. There's a World Bank, arms dealers and a United Nations. There's also a weather goddess who controls a random stock market and random weather.

(Laughter)

That's not all. And then there's a 13-page crisis document with 50 interlocking problems. So that, if one thing changes, everything else changes. I throw them into this complex matrix, and they trust me because we have a deep, rich relationship together. And so with all these crises, we have -- let's see -- ethnic and minority tensions; we have chemical and nuclear spills, nuclear proliferation. There's oil spills, environmental disasters, water rights disputes, breakaway republics, famine, endangered species and global warming. If Al Gore is here, I'm going to send my fourth-graders from Agnor-Hurt and Venable school to you because they solved global warming in a week. (Laughter) (Applause) And they've done it several times too.

(Laughter)

So I also have in the game a saboteur -- some child -- it's basically a troublemaker -- and I have my troublemaker put to use because they, on the surface, are trying to save the world and their position in the game. But they're also trying to undermine everything in the game. And they do it secretly through misinformation and ambiguities and irrelevancies, trying to cause everyone to think more deeply. The saboteur is there, and we also read from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." Fourth-graders understand it -- nine years old -- and they handle that and use that to understand how to, not follow -- at first they do -- the paths to power and destruction, the path to war. They learn to overlook short-sighted reactions and impulsive thinking, to think in a long-term, more consequential way.

Stewart Brand is here, and one of the ideas for this game came from him with a Coevolution Quarterly article on a peace force. And in the game, sometimes students actually form a peace force. I'm just a clock watcher. I'm just a clarifier. I'm just a facilitator. The students run the game. I have no chance to make any policy whatsoever once they start playing. So I'll just share with you ...

(Video) Boy: The World Peace Game is serious. You're actually getting taught something like how to take care of the world. See, Mr. Hunter is doing that because he says his time has messed up a lot, and he's trying to tell us how to fix that problem.

John Hunter: I offered them a -- (Applause) Actually, I can't tell them anything, because I don't know the answer. And I admit the truth to them right up front: I don't know. And because I don't know, they've got to dig up the answer. And so I apologize to them as well. I say, "I'm so sorry, boys and girls, but the truth is we have left this world to you in such a sad and terrible shape, and we hope you can fix it for us, and maybe this game will help you learn how to do it." It's a sincere apology, and they take it very seriously.

Now you may be wondering what all this complexity looks like. Well when we have the game start, here's what you see.

(Video) JH: All right, we're going into negotiations as of now. Go. (Chatter)

JH: My question to you is, who's in charge of that classroom? It's a serious question: who is really in charge? I've learned to cede control of the classroom over to the students over time. There's a trust and an understanding and a dedication to an ideal that I simply don't have to do what I thought I had to do as a beginning teacher: control every conversation and response in the classroom. It's impossible. Their collective wisdom is much greater than mine, and I admit it to them openly. So I'll just share with you some stories very quickly of some magical things that have happened.

In this game we had a little girl, and she was the defense minister of the poorest nation. And the defense minister -- she had the tank corps and air force and so forth. And she was next door to a very wealthy, oil-rich neighbor. Without provocation, suddenly she attacked, against her prime minister's orders, the next door neighbor's oil fields. She marched into the oil field reserves, surrounded it, without firing a shot, and secured it and held it. And that neighbor was unable to conduct any military operations because their fuel supply was all locked up.

We were all upset with her, "Why are you doing this? This is the World Peace Game. What is wrong with you?" (Laughter) This was a little girl and, at nine years old, she held her pieces and said, "I know what I'm doing." To her girlfriends she said that. That's a breach there. And we learned in this, you don't really ever want to cross a nine year-old girl with tanks. (Laughter) They are the toughest opponents. And we were very upset. I thought I was failing as a teacher. Why would she do this?

But I come to find out, a few game days later -- and there are turns where we take negotiation from a team -- actually there's a negotiation period with all teams, and each team takes a turn, then we go back in negotiation, around and around, so each turn around is one game day. So a few game days later it came to light that we found out this major country was planning a military offensive to dominate the entire world. Had they had their fuel supplies, they would have done it. She was able to see the vectors and trend lines and intentions long before any of us and understand what was going to happen and made a philosophical decision to attack in a peace game.

Now she used a small war to avert a larger war, so we stopped and had a very good philosophical discussion about whether that was right, conditional good, or not right. That's the kind of thinking that we put them in, the situations. I could not have designed that in teaching it. It came about spontaneously through their collective wisdom.

(Applause)

Another example, a beautiful thing happened. We have a letter in the game. If you're a military commander and you wage troops -- the little plastic toys on the board -- and you lose them, I put in a letter. You have to write a letter to their parents -- the fictional parents of your fictional troops -- explaining what happened and offering your condolences. So you have a little bit more thought before you commit to combat. And so we had this situation come up -- last summer actually, at Agnor-Hurt School in Albemarle County -- and one of our military commanders got up to read that letter and one of the other kids said, "Mr. Hunter, Let's ask -- there's a parent over there." There was a parent visiting that day, just sitting in the back of the room. "Let's ask that mom to read the letter. It'll be more realer if she reads it." So we did, we asked her, and she gamely picked up the letter. "Sure." She started reading. She read one sentence. She read two sentences. By the third sentence, she was in tears. I was in tears. Everybody understood that when we lose somebody, the winners are not gloating. We all lose. And it was an amazing occurrence and an amazing understanding.

I'll show you what my friend David says about this. He's been in many battles.

(Video) David: We've really had enough of people attacking. I mean, we've been lucky [most of] the time. But now I'm feeling really weird, because I'm living what Sun Tzu said one week. One week he said, "Those who go into battle and win will want to go back, and those who lose in battle will want to go back and win." And so I've been winning battles, so I'm going into battles, more battles. And I think it's sort of weird to be living what Sun Tzu said.

JH: I get chills every time I see that. That's the kind of engagement you want to have happen. And I can't design that, I can't plan that, and I can't even test that. But it's self-evident assessment. We know that's an authentic assessment of learning. We have a lot of data, but I think sometimes we go beyond data with the real truth of what's going on.

So I'll just share a third story. This is about my friend Brennan. We had played the game one session after school for many weeks, about seven weeks, and we had essentially solved all 50 of the interlocking crises. The way the game is won, all 50 problems have to be solved and every country's asset value has to be increased above its starting point. Some are poor, some are wealthy. There are billions. The World Bank president was a third-grader one time. He says, "How many zeros in a trillion? I've got to calculate that right away." But he was setting fiscal policy in that game for high school players who were playing with him.

So the team that was the poorest had gotten even poorer. There was no way they could win. And we were approaching four o'clock, our cut-off time -- there was about a minute left -- and despair just settled over the room. I thought, I'm failing as a teacher. I should have gotten it so they could have won. They shouldn't be failing like this. I've failed them. And I was just feeling so sad and dejected. And suddenly, Brennan walked over to my chair and he grabbed the bell, the bell I ring to signal a change or a reconvening of cabinets, and he ran back to his seat, rang the bell. Everybody ran to his chair, there was screaming, there was yelling, waving of their dossiers. They get these dossiers full of secret documents. They were gesticulating, they were running around. I didn't know what they were doing. I'd lost control of my classroom. Principal walks in, I'm out of a job. The parents were looking in the window.

And Brennan runs back to his seat. Everybody runs back to their seat. He rings the bell again. He says, "We have" -- and there's 12 seconds left on the clock -- "we have all nations pooled all our funds together. And we've got 600 billion dollars. We're going to offer it as a donation to this poor counrty. And if they accept it, it'll raise their asset value and we can win the game. Will you accept it?" And there are three seconds left on the clock. Everybody looks at this prime minister of that country, and he says, "Yes." And the game is won. Spontaneous compassion that could not be planned for, that was unexpected and unpredictable.

Every game we play is different. Some games are more about social issues, some are more about economic issues. Some games are more about warfare. But I don't try to deny them that reality of being human. I allow them to go there and, through their own experience, learn in a bloodless way how not to do what they consider to be the wrong thing. And they find out what is right their own way, their own selves. And so in this game, I've learned so much from it, but I would say that if only they could pick up a critical thinking tool or creative thinking tool from this game and leverage something good for the world, they may save us all. If only.

And on behalf of all of my teachers on whose shoulders I'm standing, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(Applause)

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Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

Available in Digital Cinema 4k.

Like my Facebook Page for updates facebook.com/​TSOPhotography
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Press/licensing/projects contact: terjes@gmail.com

Music by my friend: Ludovico Einaudi - "Nuvole bianche" with permission.
Please support the artist here:
itunes.apple.com/​us/​album/​una-mattina/​id217799399

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23 Things They Don't Tell you About Capitalism

Transcript

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. The debate about who's going to pay for the deficit crisis spreads across the nation as various states are taking it out on their public sector workers. What's happening with the whole capitalist system is a matter of great debate. It wasn't too many months ago the front cover of Newsweek magazine said we're all socialists now. So the debate about whither capitalism was at the core of most of the economic debate, although it seems to have died down now as a lot of stimulus money seems to have made the contradictions a little less intense for a while. But what about the future of the capitalist system? Are we facing another major depression? Are we facing a global meltdown? And is there a more rational way to have a capitalist system? Now joining us to talk about all of this is Ha-Joon Chang. He's the author of the book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. Thanks for joining us.

HA-JOON CHANG, ECONOMIST, UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE: Thank you.
JAY: So you teach economics at Cambridge.
CHANG: That's right.
JAY: And you've been trying to popularize a better understanding of economics. But first of all, when you say 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, who's They?
CHANG: Right. Well, they are the supporters of free-market economics, ranging from academics in universities through people in the private sector, government, the journalistic world. I mean, these are people who basically try to justify the status quo. I mean, they're telling people, well, whatever you think about what's going on is all how it has to be. You know. I mean, you don't like income inequality? Tough. I mean, that's the only way to run an efficient economic system. You don't like environmental destruction? Tough. I mean, that's how we become rich. You know. So these are people who have been telling us in the last 30 years that we have to liberalize everything, we have to deregulate everything, we have to make rich people even richer, so that everyone else can become rich, and so on, and engineered all [inaudible] massive policy changes like tax cuts for the rich, business deregulation, the deregulation of the labor market and eroding of labor rights, and so on.
JAY: In your book, in the introduction, you say this is not an anticapitalist manifesto, that capitalism is the best system humans have developed so far, and that there's a more rational way to have capitalism. How do you see that happening when one of the products of this free market and of capitalism is such a concentration of ownership, and as a result such a concentration of power politically, that even if you could imagine a more rational form of capitalism, you can't get there, because these guys own everything?
CHANG: Yes. I mean, there's a lot of truth in there. But let's first of all not forget that actually you don't have to imagine it. I mean, these alternative capitalist systems exist in Sweden, in Finland, in Germany, in Japan, in France. I'm not saying that these countries are somehow Gardens of Eden, but, you know, I mean, when people hear someone criticize free-market capitalism, the kind of capitalism that the United States and Britain practice in the last 30 years, maybe 25 years, people immediately think, oh, okay, so then that--do you want to become Cuba? Do you want to become North Korea? No, actually. There are lots of different ways of running capitalism, and I don't think that the free-market capitalism that you have in the United States today is the only way to run capitalism. So it is not like I'm talking about some hypothetical society that might come 200 years later. No. I mean, these alternatives already exist.
JAY: But a lot of the countries you're talking about in Europe are also--have bought in over the last couple of decades, into this free-market or what they call neoliberal economics, and they're more and more moving in that direction.
CHANG: Well, yes. I mean, they are, and some of them have bubbled quite significantly. But, I mean, you know, it's all relative. I mean, yes, the Swiss are cutting welfare state. But in the Swedish GDP, the welfare spending, social spending account for something like, still, 32 percent of GDP when it is, like--I mean, they are barely 15 percent in the United States. You know. So they are starting from a very different end. And, yes, I mean, it is true that even in Europe there are a lot of people--especially rich people--who would definitely benefit from having American-style capitalism, very strongly pushing for it.
JAY: And the other part of it, to what extent does European affluence depend on having this enormous American market where there is such social polarization and a lot of cheap labor, actually, and a big military force to manage the global system? I mean, can Europe do what it's doing without America doing what it's doing?
CHANG: Well, in terms of the pure economic demand, Europe doesn't really need America very much anymore. I mean, maybe it did in the 1950s and '60s, but today, the European market's bigger than the American market: 60, 70 percent of European trade is within Europe. So, actually, economically it doesn't need the United States anymore. Maybe it--in terms of global geopolitics and so on it does, but I'm not enough of an expert to comment on that.
JAY: So in the book--and here's the book again, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, you go through 23 things. So let's do one or two of those things, and then in--this is the beginning of a series of interviews we're going to be doing. We'll run one every other day till we do 23 things. And we'll do a couple now, and then we'll move on. So Thing 1: There's no such thing as a free market. So explain that, 'cause we're all being told that not only are we in a free market, they should be freer [inaudible]
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. No. I mean, a lot of people find that statement quite mysterious, because some people don't like the free market. But we know what is a free market when we see one, at least. I mean, it may be tricky to define in theoretical terms, but in the same way we know what an elephant is without being able to define it when we see one [inaudible]
JAY: And your argument is there's no such thing. So why do you say that?
CHANG: No, actually not. Yeah. The point is that all markets have a lot of regulations. I mean, this is without exception. But people think there's a free market only because they accept those existing regulations so much that they fail to see them. You know, for example, do you think that America is a free labor market? Yes, I mean, it has some regulations, but you'd think it's relatively free compared to European market. But how about the ban on child labor? You know, I mean, this is shutting out 30 percent of potential labor force from the labor market. Don't forget that in this country and in the European countries and in the past and in many developing countries today, children as young as four or five, you know, millions of children, hundreds of millions of those children work.
JAY: And it wasn't free market that gave rise to a ban on child labor. It took government and a law and people saying in the interests of the society you can't have child labor.
CHANG: Exactly. So initially when people tried to, through government legislation, regulate this child labor, a lot of the supporters of the free market are outraged. They say this is the most ridiculous intervention that undermines the very basis of a free economy, i.e., freedom of contract. You know, these children want to work; these people want to employ them; what is your problem?
JAY: It also seems rather contradictory that on the one hand, some of these forces defend the free market; on the other hand, it's okay to ban collective bargaining rights. Like, it's not okay for workers to say, I'm not going to sell you my labor unless you meet certain conditions. There's no free market for that.
CHANG: Yeah. No. I mean, [inaudible] total double standard. You know. And basically the very reason why I wrote that thing, Thing 1, is to show that, you know, free-marketeers have been telling us that while we have this scientifically defined entity called the market, the free market, and any attempt to meddle with this its workings is unscientific, politically motivated, and so on, but actually what I'm saying is that no, actually, the so-called free-market position is as political as any other position.
JAY: I mean, one of the reasons this whole issue of free market came up has had a lot to do with the--during the '50s and '60s, and before World War II, a lot of countries around the world had a certain kind of nationalist approach to their economies. Especially in Latin America and other places where they had public enterprises, there were tariffs. Even in Canada, for example, there were high tariffs for a long time. So free-market had a lot to do with opening up markets for foreign and US investment.
CHANG: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No. But, you know, the interesting thing is that in Thing 7 I explain how the very idea of protectionism was invented in the United States, you know, that Alexander Hamilton, this country's first ever Treasury secretary, the guy you see on the $10 bill, I mean, he came up with this idea of infant industry protection, arguing that the United States as a young country needs to protect and nurture its young producers, the infants, against that competition from these big, grown-up companies from Britain and other European countries. As a result, actually, the United States had the highest tariff rate in the world for over a century, up to the Second World War.
JAY: Which gives them time to build up [inaudible] economy.
CHANG: Exactly, yeah. But, unfortunately, the history [inaudible] once they've reached a point, they say, well, everyone else should do free trade. So actually the Americans were in the 19th century criticizing the British for preaching free trade, pointing out that actually Britain also grew on the basis of, you know, protection and subsidies in the 18th century. Now that they are on the top of the world, they tell us Americans not to do it. But we will do it. You know. I mean, actually, there is the--in the book I cites Ulysses Grant, one of your presidents, saying that, you know, the English tell us to do free trade; yes, we will do free trade, but only after 200 years of protectionism, when we are as rich as they are.
JAY: Yeah, I guess. And then once you become an imperial power yourself, you start having imperial ideas about what's good and what's bad. Yeah.
CHANG: Yeah. You are seeing the same with the later developers. For instance, Japan notoriously controlled foreign investment. Today you go to the WTO, the World Trade Organization, the Japanese government routinely kind of submits these documents which say regulating foreign investment is bad for economic development.
JAY: In the same story in Canada, which was they had high tariffs for a long time,--
CHANG: That's right, yeah.
JAY: --but once you started to have some very big pools of capital in Canada that wanted to start going abroad, all of a sudden, okay, you can drop our tariffs now, and now all of you drop your tariffs.
CHANG: Exactly.
JAY: Yeah. Okay. In the next segment of our interview, we're going to go to Thing 2: Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners. That's a provocative one. And please join us for the next segment of our interview with Ha-Joon Chang on The Real News Network.





Transcript

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. Welcome back to our series on 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. And joining us again is Ha-Joon Chang. Thanks for joining us again.

HA-JOON CHANG, ECONOMIST, UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE: Thank you.
JAY: So we're onto Thing 2, although as we do things, we're kind of jumping around.
CHANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JAY: But at any rate, companies should not be run in the interest of their owners. So that's sacrilegious. How could you say such a thing?
CHANG: That's right. Yeah. No, you know--.
JAY: Our duty is to our shareholders, they say.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. No. You know, I mean, we have been told repeatedly that, you know, people take better care of things, be they physical things like a house or notional thing like a company, when they have ownership stake. So the companies are owned by shareholders, and therefore companies should be run in the interest of the shareholders. That's the best for the company. And even though what you do is good for the company, it's good for the national economy as well. So everyone benefits. Now that ,we have bought into this logic in a massive way, while we are feeling quite uncomfortable by the fact that these shareholder-driven companies have been doing a lot of nasty things, I mean, shutting down plants, sacking people. So, you know, on the one hand, you philosophically agree that we should let companies be run in the interest of the shareholders while we are suffering from all this.
JAY: But they're saying that's efficiency and you need this toughness, the self-interested shareholders, to introduce real efficiency.
CHANG: Oh, exactly, yeah, that's exactly what they say. But what has been actually happening is--because these shareholders, despite being legal owners--. You know, I mean, today millions of people own shares in a company, so no one really has a long-term stake; you know, they can leave at the click of a mouse by selling their shares. So, actually, these shareholders are very impatient. They want results now. I mean, they want it--.
JAY: But in some companies you have, like, Warren Buffett's position in Coca-Cola or you have shareholders that are essentially billionaires, not small shareholders, who own such a big stake in the company, it's not so easy for them to sell.
CHANG: That's right, yeah, yeah. Those are exceptions. But today, you know, for example, General Motors [inaudible] at one point that there's [inaudible] shareholder [inaudible] was someone who owned 10 percent of the company. Basically, in the last 30 years the professional managers have basically decided to run the company in the interests of floating shareholders, because if you don't be nice to them, they basically begin to sell their shares in such a way that your company's taken over by a, you know, hostile--.
JAY: Right, but if you don't run it in the interests of your shareholders, who does management run it in the interest of? 'Cause what's happening now, especially in the banking sector, but some other places, is CEOs and senior management may not be actually all that worried about shareholders. They run it in the interest of themselves. And they even make bad business decisions if it gives them big bonuses.
CHANG: Yeah. No, no. But, you know, this is actually what I call an unholy alliance between the professional managers and floating shareholders. So floating shareholders demand short-term profit. The best way to get short-term profit is to sack everyone you can think of, not invest in anything that brings a return in the long-term--equipment, research, training. You know, the professional managers actually do not care, because by the time the effect of these decisions kick in and your company decline, probably you are in another job. You know. Maybe you are retired.
JAY: Now, there are some companies that have more longer-term planning. You'd have to say Google does and some of the other bigger tech firms.
CHANG: No, no. I mean, yeah, I'm generalizing, but there are obviously [inaudible]
JAY: But if they don't run it in the interest of shareholders, and if management doesn't run it in the interest of them enriching themselves, who are they going to run it in the interest of? 'Cause how are they going to run it in the interest of society unless society has some kind of ownership stake?
CHANG: No. Exactly. So this is why a lot of countries have arrangements to give a voice to, for example, trade unions or the local community or other so-called stakeholders. So once again, I mean, Americans should not believe that the American way's the only way to run capitalism. Go to Germany. I mean, all the major companies have two-tier board structure, and on top of the managerial board, you have this supervisory board where half the members are selected by the trade unions. And this supervisory board has to give approval to big decisions like shutting down plants, agreeing to the merger or taking over some other company. And as a result, a lot of, naturally, resistance have been built into the system towards this American-style hostile takeover. In the whole 60 years of history of post-Second World War German history, there were something--only two or three hostile takeovers of any major company. And the German economy's as [inaudible] well as the American economy. So don't think that by involving other stakeholders, like the employees or the suppliers or the consumers or the local community, that you actually going to ruin the company. Actually, the American way has ruined the companies, because it has led to companies basically making decisions that boost profit in the short run but undermine the position of the company in the long run. You know, this has become so embarrassing that even Jack Welch, the guru of this shareholder value movement, has recently come out and said that the shareholder value maximization was--and I'm quoting--"the dumbest idea in the world". You know. So you have to think there is this myth that, yes that the hard-edged American way is the best way to make money, actually, you know, that the root cause of the current financial crisis is in those things, is--.
JAY: But if you're going to impose more of a social mandate on companies, like, for example, there's--in Canada and London, Ontario, there's a Ford plant that at its height employed 5,000 people. Apparently this fall its likely to close down. Ford has decided in its global manufacturing operations this plant doesn't have a role to play anymore. The only way to have some community say in the closure of that plant is if there was some--either by law, regulation, or at the level of ownership, and certainly in the auto industry you'd think there's an argument, given that the auto industry would be right down the toilet if it hadn't been for public money.
CHANG: Yeah.
JAY: But I don't--but I'm not finding you arguing for more kind of forms of public ownership as a way [inaudible]
CHANG: Oh, no. I mean, it's one of the ways. I mean, you know, I'm quite open-minded about the practical tools we use. But let me give you an example. [inaudible] in the 1970s, actually, Volkswagen, the German car company, went bankrupt in the way, say, General Motors has recently. It was saved by the state government of Lower Saxony, where the Volkswagen headquarters is, and it still had--the state government still has a 90 percent stake in the company. And when they bailed it out, in return they actually demanded that there is this law installed which demands that Volkswagen, when trying to, you know, shut down factories [inaudible] at least in Germany we'll have to get the approval of state government of Lower Saxony. You can use something like that. And, actually, the amazing thing this time around is that the American government, the British government, they give all this money to the bankrupt companies, practically nationalized them, become the biggest shareholder, and they can even tell the employers what to do. You know, what's--I mean, this is so outrageous. I mean, you are not even playing by the capitalist rule. Capitalist rule says that if you have the majority stake in a company, you can basically tell your employees to do whatever you want to do.
JAY: You tell the board. And, like, in the case of General Motors, they could have told General Motors, for example, we campaigned and got elected on a green agenda, so how about doing something about it? They never said a word [inaudible]
CHANG: No. But, I mean, you know, these people are now even not even playing by the rule of capitalism. For them, nothing affects their wealth.
JAY: Okay. In the next segment of our interview we're going to go to number 3 thing: Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be. Okay. Join us on the next segment of our interview on 23 things they--well, they didn't tell you about capitalism, but we think they should have. Thanks for joining us, and join us again.




Transcript

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. We're continuing our series with Ha-Joon Chang on 23 Things They Didn't Tell You about Capitalism--but we will. Thanks for joining us.

HA-JOON CHANG, ECONOMIST, UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE: Thank you.

JAY: So just to remind everybody, you teach at Cambridge, economics. And so here we are with the book and we're going to continue. Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be. Well, the market says that's what they should get paid, so how could it be wrong?

CHANG: Exactly. You know, I mean, we have been brainwashed, this idea that whatever market decides to pay people, we have to accept. You know, so if Mr. Blankfein at Goldman Sachs gets paid $50 million per year, it must be because he's worth it. You know, if people are poor in developing countries, it must be because they have low productivity.
JAY: Well, the argument's going to be: if the market doesn't decide, who will? And how?
CHANG: Exactly. But is it really the market that's deciding? And, I mean, that's my point, because, you know, for example, if you liberalize that in terms of immigration, probably 80, maybe even 90 percent of people in the rich countries can be and probably will be replaced by cheaper immigrants. And we are not just talking about cleaners and taxi drivers; we are talking about medical doctors [inaudible] engineers.
JAY: Yeah, that's a good example. If you created a process that would actually give credit, deservedly and tested, to doctors, you could probably have ten times the number of doctors in a year or two.
CHANG: Exactly. You know. And, you know, I personally replaced a British guy 20 years ago when I got my job in Cambridge. So it's not like--.
JAY: Did they pay you less?
CHANG: It's not like people from developing countries actually have low productivity. I mean, the reason why these people cannot move and compete for jobs in the rich countries is because of immigration control.
JAY: And the whole society they operate in.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. Now the point is that the reason why people are rich in the rich countries is not because they are individually so wonderful. It's because they live in a society with good social system, good institutions, you know, good scientific infrastructure, and so on. I mean, you know, and smart ones actually know it. I mean, Warren Buffett in an interview about 15 years ago said, I actually believe that most of the money I made has been made by the society, not by me, because, you know, just imagine, drop me in the middle of Bangladesh. What am I going to be? I'll be a farmer. You know? Probably I'd be a poor farmer [inaudible]
JAY: Well, that's one of the things I don't think you talked about directly in here. And maybe this is--I think this should've been 25 things, and I hope we have time to do 25. But at any rate. But I would've made 24 "Capital is the source of all wealth". And it's capital that creates jobs. And somehow it's the private owner of the capital is the one that's creating the value for the society.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. No, I mean, it's not just capital in the narrow monetary sense, but, I mean, the whole social infrastructure. So even if you are a brilliant scientist, if you live in a country where the labs have no equipment, there's no research grant for science, and there's no good university system where you can recruit good research assistants, you don't do research. So, actually, the point that I'm trying to make in that example, however striking it may sound in the beginning, is actually quite a reasonable one. I mean, it is that our productivity, individual productivity, is largely collectively determined, and therefore you cannot have these people argue that, well, I get $50 million because I'm worth it--no, because his $50 million earning is supported by the whole society.
JAY: Well, that's--then you could go to my point 25 would be: if the whole society is producing the wealth of the society, why are we still living with forms of private ownership that come from the 1500s? But--.
CHANG: Yeah, no, no. But, I mean, on that issue, you know, we have seen the failure of these socialist economies where they abolished private ownership but it still didn't kind of fully socialize that control, because it ended up concentrating control in the hands of a small minority.
JAY: Yeah, but we talk about many forms of capitalism. Maybe there's many forms of alternatives to capitalism, 'cause the 20th century form of socialism clearly concentrated power in these one-party states and all of that. But you could have public ownership in many diversified ways--municipally, state, federal, co-ops, collectives, non-profits [inaudible]
CHANG: Yeah. And already, I mean, in a lot of economies those things play a very important role. You know, I mean, you talk about country like Singapore, I mean, you think it's a free-trade economy. Yes, it is, but on the other hand, the government owns all the land, 85 percent of housing is supplied by government-owned housing corporation. I mean, in countries like Denmark, agricultural cooperatives have played an extremely important role in its economic development. I mean, of course, it is not that agricultural anymore, so that is less important. But, you know, in China you have all the forms of hybrid ownership. I mean, it's difficult to know whether this form is truly private or semipublic. You know [inaudible]
JAY: My point 25 would be: you can't have more rational forms of an economy when you have a handful of people owning the commanding heights of the economy, 'cause they exercise too much political power.
CHANG: Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, they're making sure that their ideas are [inaudible]
JAY: It doesn't matter how irrational what they want [is]. If that's--they just have the power to ram it through.
CHANG: Yeah, and especially when they control the media. I mean, they can tell people, well, you may not like it--.
JAY: Not us, not us.
CHANG: Yeah. You may not like it, but this is how the world works. And, you know, I mean, I just cannot believe how the people in Britain, United States, and several European countries have swallowed this nonsense that the deficit problem has been caused by kind of social welfare spending.
JAY: Yeah, it's actually the problem--it's really the fault of people who are going to retire. If only they would retire later, everything would just be fine.
CHANG: That's right.
JAY: Okay. Next. Most people--the washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet has.
CHANG: Yup.
JAY: Okay. Make--what's that? What do you mean?
CHANG: Yeah, I mean, you know, through that I was trying to tell people that we shouldn't judge things--well, so to speak, from the wrong end of the telescope. You know, we tend to undervalue things that already have been achieved and think only the newest things are important. So, for example, the reason why I brought out the washing machine is that the washing machine and other household appliances have enormously changed the way that we live. I mean, you know, it has enabled, especially, women to enter the labor market in a major way. And that has changed the bargaining positions of men and women within family, that has changed the number of children that women have, that have abolished some preference that most rural societies used to have.
JAY: But don't minimize the social importance of online dating. Alright. Here we go. Next, assume the worst about people and you get the worst.
CHANG: Yes. In the standard free-market economics, it is assumed that we only work for our own self-interests, and therefore everything has to be designed to channel that into productive activity, and the best way to do it is to do it through free-market, the invisible hand of the free market. But, actually, the world cannot work in the way it does if we actually had individuals behaving in the way they are described in the textbook. You know, for example, the most striking example is this method of industrial action called work-to-rule. Simply by working according to the rule, actually the workers can reduce their output by 30, 40, 50 percent. Factories are run in the way they run only because these workers take extra initiative. They do things that they don't have to according to the contract. You know, sometimes they take shortcuts, sometimes they put in extra effort, and so on. This shows that the economy runs in the way it runs only because people have a lot of goodwill. So we have to actually build a system where we exploit this, the good side of people, while subduing the kind of selfish side.
JAY: Well, this goes back to what we were saying before, because if you believe that privately owned capital is the source of all wealth, then the private capitalist desire to get as rich as they possibly can is the driver of the society. So, like they said in the movie, greed is good, but then they go ask working class kids to go off and die in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like, where--you know, it's okay--like, their sacrifice makes sense.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah.
JAY: But it's--of course, they're getting other people to go make the sacrifice.
CHANG: Yeah. No. You know, I mean, on this I can only agree with Gore Vidal, who some time ago famously said that the American economic system is capitalism for the workers and socialism for the rich. So there you go.
JAY: Alright. So in the next segment of our series, we're going to deal with greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable. And that's a really important concept. So please join us for the next segment of our interview series on 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.




Transcript

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. We're continuing our series of interviews on 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. Joining us again now is Ha-Joon Chang. He teaches at Cambridge, economics, and he's the author of this book. And we'll just get right back into it. Thing #6: Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable. So the argument is, if we control inflation, we control the world economy, and everything will just be prosperous.

HA-JOON CHANG, ECONOMIST, UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE: Yes. I mean, the, I mean, starting point is a very commonsensical argument saying that you need stability if you want to make sure that people invest, because investment brings return in the long term. So if there is a lot of instability in the economy, people don't want to invest. Now, I mean, that may be quite commonsensical argument, but in this discourse, basically stability has been equated with low inflation, low price inflation. But the point is that actually the macroeconomic stability has many different dimensions, and, actually, price dimension, unless price inflation goes into really high area, is actually the least of the problem for ordinary people.
JAY: I mean, I guess that's part of the question is stability for who.
CHANG: Exactly, yeah. So, yes, I mean, the main central banks of the world insist that inflation should be below 2, 3 percent. There was quite the surprise when the chief economist of the IMF recently said, oh, even 4 percent is okay. But, you know, I mean, hand-on-heart, can you really tell me that you can tell what the current rate of inflation is? I mean, can you really tell me whether you can tell the difference between 2 percent inflation and 4 percent inflation? No. But, you know, the policies that have been used to control inflation basically have exercised such pressure on the overall economy, it has made a lot of people unemployed and lose their livelihood and so on.
JAY: It's kind of ironic, because if you keep inflation low, and then you can create asset bubbles, these are worth a fortune with low inflation, 'cause now all your asset bubbles [inaudible] except give chaos because of the asset bubble.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. One problem is that in measuring price inflation we do not include things like the price of the real estate. So that's one critical mistake. But basically all this inflation rhetoric is in the interest of the financial industry, because, you know, they basically have most of their assets that have returns denominated in the kind of current price terms--if the inflation is high, they lose money. So they basically keep emphasizing the importance of inflation. But, you know, I mean, even research done by economists from the World Bank and the IMF (depending on which research you look at) say that below 10, 20, according to some research even 40 percent inflation, there's actually no evidence whatsoever that higher inflation is bad for the economy.
JAY: Well, when you start getting into inflations of 15, 20 percent, and even over 10 percent, then isn't that bad for ordinary people too? Their wages are worth less, then interest rates usually go way up at that time, so now you can't afford your mortgage anymore. I mean, there must be a point [inaudible]
CHANG: Yeah, no, of course. Yeah. I mean, there comes a point where it can really eat into people's living standard. But, you know, I mean, that level is actually probably somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, rather than one or 2 percent, as the free-market [inaudible] if you try to kind of have a syringe, but put your finger on the end and try to compress the air, initially, yeah, it's quite easy; but as you try to go further and further down it becomes more difficult. So, yes, I mean, bringing down the inflation from, I don't know, 20 percent to 10 percent, yeah, it's probably going to have more benefit than the cost. But as you try to bring it down from, you know, 5 percent to 2 percent, 4 percent to 1 percent, we have to do a lot of things which depress demand, which translate into job losses. And, you know, of course, I mean, everyone as a consumer might benefit, because their grocery bill is 1 percent smaller, but don't forget that a lot of people are paying for this in the form of being unemployed.
JAY: Right. So if you're sitting on assets, if you have a lot of money and a lot of ownership of things, you want to protect the value of those assets. You don't want them to depreciate through inflation. And so if people lose their jobs, that's not your problem I suppose.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah.
JAY: Okay. So next piece we go. And, of course, you can get the book and get the whole elaboration of these arguments. I should have said right off the top this book's a fun read, and it's actually got a sense of humor throughout it. Okay, #7: Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich. Okay, we talked about that in the beginning, how it's okay to have protectionism when you're a big power, but once you're big, everyone else should have free trade. So I think we'll go to #8.
CHANG: Yeah.
JAY: Capital has a nationality. Now, that's an important point, because a lot of people think of corporations or talk about them as if they're completely transnational.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, I mean, the corporations have been playing up this aspect that they now have operations in many countries, and they can go to, I don't know, China or Vietnam or whatever, so your US workers had better accept lower wages and poorer working conditions. So certainly they have played up this aspect of globalization, if you like. But if you actually look at objective statistics, yes, these countries do now quite a bit of production abroad--say, in the case of American companies, probably close to 30 percent of production is conducted in foreign countries. But, actually, most of the core activities, like research and development, strategic decision-making, and so on, they are still in the home country.
JAY: Well, according to the American Manufacturers Association, if I have this correctly, the United States is still the biggest manufacturer in the world.
CHANG: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
JAY: China, they're saying even though China's gross numbers may be a little higher this year, it has to do with a lower American dollar. In terms of actual output, the United States is still the number-one manufacturer.
CHANG: That's right, yeah. And also, you know, let's take the case of the Philippines. I mean, you know, the World Bank every year publishes these statistics showing the proportion of high-tech products in your export. According to this number, the Philippines is second most high-tech economy in the world after Singapore. But why then does the Philippines have only $2,000 per capita income? Because all the brainy things are done in the United States, in Japan, in Korea, and they just send these things, the Philippine workers put it together, they go out as Philippine export. But since they do not control the core technology, since they do not control the strategic management, the Filipinos get only the wages.
JAY: Alright. Well, you've got a chapter here: would you not live in the postindustrial age? And you talk about the importance of making stuff. One part of that is I think there's a kind of weird underestimation of the amount of stuff that gets made in the United States, how big an exporter it is. I believe it's the third-largest exporter after China and Germany. And one of the reasons it doesn't need to be such a bigger exporter: it has such an enormous domestic market. What do you make of this kind of--while certainly a lot of stuff was moved offshore, this is a big economy.
CHANG: Yeah. No. I mean, the US is--yeah. I mean, despite--you know, at one point it was producing something like half the world manufacturing output. So compared to that, yes, I mean, it has lost a lot of manufacturing--.
JAY: But is this part of a kind of a psychological warfare towards workers? Oh, you're losing so much industry, you'd better not act up or it's all going to go?
CHANG: Yeah, no. And, I mean, it has many sources. I mean, one of the sources is this overdevelopment of the financial industry, which largely--thanks to deregulation, not because of genuine innovation--. You know, Paul Volcker once famously said that the only socially useful financial innovation that we have seen in the last half a century is the ATM. I mean, I probably wouldn't go as far as that, but, you know, a lot of these so-called financial innovations were basically making money by lobbying to deregulate so that you can do more dubious things, and this has really raised the profit rate in the financial sector. And therefore a lot of people have decided that that's where the money is--we don't need industry.
JAY: So what's your argument? They say you don't need to make stuff. It's okay to have services, knowledge-based industry, finance, and let the rest of the world make stuff.
CHANG: Yes, but this is totally unrealistic. You know, in the United States, trade deficit in manufactured goods is something like equivalent to 4 percent of GDP. The trade surplus that you make in services, including financial services, is only about 1 percent of GDP. So you have been running all this deficit for years. I mean, that's why you have sold so many Treasury bills to the Chinese. So this notion that somehow you have a service sector that is strong and big enough to finance your manufacturing demand is completely based on myth. And also, don't forget, I mean, the countries like Switzerland that you think live on taking care of dirty money deposited by Third World dictators and selling things like cuckoo clocks and cowbells to American tourists actually, in per capita terms, is the most industrialized economy in the world. It literally has the biggest manufacturing output in per capita terms. Of course, they're only 7 million people and they tend to specialize in--.
JAY: But they still think making stuff matters, even if they have such a big banking sector.
CHANG: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
JAY: Right.
CHANG: Yeah. And, you know, in history there is no country that has become rich without having a strong manufacturing sector--I mean, unless, you are, I don't know, Brunei, a small island floating on oil.
JAY: Okay. So in the next segment of our interview we're going to deal with Thing 10. Thing 10 is: The US does not have the highest living standard in the world. And we're also going to talk about the importance of wages. So please join us for the next segment of our interview in this series, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.
End of Transcript

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The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Kevin Marks, Andrew Keen, and Steve Gillmor — dive deep into the reasons why Google has its work cut out for it in the fight for social credibility. @scobleizer thinks it’s because the engineers of the search startup don’t understand the value of wasting time. Doc Searls, who arrived late in the show due to a failure to understand how clocks waste time, thinks there’s room for failing at social.

In a week where Netflix paid a million dollars per episode for the full Monty of seven seasons of Mad Men, the new challenger to HBO and Showtime puts a price tag on the value of the model formerly known as the rerun. British philosopher and TCTV interviewer Andrew Keen agrees with In The Plex author Steven Levy that Google’s future lies with mastering Artificial Intelligence. Watch for a secret revealed about new CEO Larry Page. Hint: he doesn’t need a microwave.

InPulse Adds A Smartphone-Like Experience To Your Wrist Watch

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kiip

Kiip: A Welcome from kiip on Vimeo.

Out of Thin Air

Today’s a big day at Kiip. We’re putting forth an idea that we truly believe will change the landscape of mobile advertising and engagement.
The achievement moment in games evokes feelings of accomplishment and happiness, and speaks directly to pillars of human emotion. The pride that one feels in rising to a challenge – and beating it – is unmatched when we play games.

So we thought to ourselves…what if we could deliver a reward, a genuine, authentic, tangible gift - right at that moment? We’d like that. You would too.
And so we did. We created a network and the technology to help enable brands to reach you when you win - at the achievement moment - with a reward. It helps brands build a one-to-one connection with you, while thanking you, and it brings us all closer through the authenticity of a value exchange.
This is us. We’re Kiip. Reach them when they win.

Kiip: An Introduction from kiip on Vimeo.

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competetion

莉莎·唐納利（Liza Donnelly）：借助幽默繪畫求改變

(Laughter)

I was afraid of womanhood. Not that I'm not afraid now, but I've learned to pretend. I've learned to be flexible. In fact, I've developed some interesting tools to help me deal with this fear. Let me explain. Back in the '50s and '60s, when I was growing up, little girls were supposed to be kind and thoughtful and pretty and gentle and soft. And we were supposed to fit into roles that were sort of shadowy. Really not quite clear what we were supposed to be.

(Laughter)

There were plenty of role models all around us. We had our mothers, our aunts, our cousins, our sisters, and of course, the ever-present media bombarding us with images and words, telling us how to be. Now my mother was different. She was a homemaker, but she and I didn't go out and do girlie things together. And she didn't buy me pink outfits. Instead, she knew what I needed, and she bought me a book of cartoons. And I just ate it up. I drew, and I drew, and since I knew that humor was acceptable in my family, I could draw, do what I wanted to do, and not have to perform, not have to speak -- I was very shy -- and I could still get approval. I was launched as a cartoonist. Now when we're young, we don't always know -- we know there are rules out there, but we don't always know -- we don't perform them right, even though we are imprinted at birth with these things, and we're told what the most important color in the world is. We're told what shape we're supposed to be in. (Laughter) We're told what to wear -- (Laughter) -- and how to do our hair -- (Laughter) -- and how to behave.

Now the rules that I'm talking about are constantly being monitored by the culture. We're being corrected. And the primary policemen are women, because we are the carriers of the tradition. We pass it down from generation to generation. Not only, we always have this vague notion that something's expected of us. And on top of all off these rules, they keep changing. (Laughter) We don't know what's going on half the time, so it puts us in a very tenuous position.

(Laughter)

Now if you don't like these rules, and many of us don't -- I know I didn't, and I still don't, even though I follow them half the time, not quite aware that I'm following them -- what better way than to change them with humor? Humor relies on the traditions of a society. It takes what we know, and it twists it. It takes the codes of behavior and the codes of dress, and it makes it unexpected, and that's what elicits a laugh. Now what if you put together women and humor? I think you can get change. Because women are on the ground floor, and we know the traditions so well, we can bring a different voice to the table.

Now I started drawing in the middle of a lot of chaos. I grew up not far from here in Washington D.C. during the Civil Rights movement, the assassinations, the Watergate hearings and then the feminist movement. And I think I was drawing, trying to figure out what was going on. And then also my family was in chaos. And I drew to try to bring my family together -- (Laughter) -- try to bring my family together with laughter. It didn't work. My parents got divorced, and my sister was arrested. But I found my place. I found that I didn't have to wear high heels, I didn't have to wear pink, and I could feel like I fit in.

Now when I was a little older in my 20s, I realized there are not many women in cartooning. And I thought, "Well, maybe I can break the little glass ceiling of cartooning." And so I did; I became a cartoonist. And then I thought, in my 40s I started thinking, "Well, why don't I do something? I always loved political cartoons, so why don't I do something with the content of my cartoons to make people think about the stupid rules that we're following as well as laugh?"

Now my perspective is a particularly -- (Laughter) -- my perspective is a particularly American perspective. I can't help it. I live here. Even though I've traveled a lot, I still think like an American woman. But I believe that the rules that I'm talking about are universal, of course -- that each culture has its different codes of behavior and dress and traditions, and each woman has to deal with these same things that we do here in the U.S. Consequently, we have -- women, because we're on the ground, we know the tradition -- we have amazing antenna.

Now my work lately has been to collaborate with international cartoonists, which I so enjoy. And it's given me a greater appreciation for the power of cartoons to get at the truth, to get at the issues quickly and succinctly. And not only that, it can get to the viewer through, not only the intellect, but through the heart. My work also has allowed me to collaborate with women cartoonists from across the world -- countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Argentina, France -- and we have sat together and laughed and talked and shared our difficulties. And these women are working so hard to get their voices heard in some very difficult circumstances. But I feel blessed to be able to work with them.

And we talk about how women have such strong perceptions, because of our tenuous position and our role as tradition-keepers, that we can have the great potential to be change-agents. And I think, I truly believe, that we change this thing one laugh at a time.

Thank you.

(Applause)

（眾笑）

我曾經很怕女性特質。 我不能說我現在不害怕了， 但我已經學會了偽裝。 我已經學會了靈活。 事實上，我已經開發了一些有趣的工具 來幫助我對付這種恐懼。 讓我解釋一下。 早在50年代和60年代，就是我成長的年代， 小女孩應該是善良、體貼、 漂亮、溫婉和輕柔的。 而我們應該適應角色 是有點朦朧。 真的不是很清楚什麼應該是我們。

（眾笑）

我們周圍有很多榜樣。 我們有我們的母親、我們的阿姨、我們的堂表姐妹、姐妹， 以及，當然，永遠存在的媒體 用圖像和文字轟炸我們， 告訴我們應該如何做。 而我的母親是不同的。 她是一個家庭主婦， 但她和我沒有出去一起做娘娘腔的東西。 她並沒有給我買粉紅色的衣服。 相反，她知道我需要什麼，她給我買了漫畫書。 而我對它愛不釋手。 我畫了又畫， 因為我知道在我家是可以接受幽默的， 我可以畫畫，做我想做的事， 而不用表演、不用說話 -- 我曾經很害羞 -- 而我仍然可以得到認同。 我被推為一個漫畫家。 正當我們年輕的時候， 我們並不總是知道 -- 我們知道外面有規則， 但我們並不總是知道 -- 我們沒有正確執行它們， 儘管在我們出生時就存在 有這些東西， 我們被告知 什麼是世界上最重要的顏色。 我們被告知我們應該是什麼形狀。 （眾笑） 我們被告知應該穿什麼衣服 -- （笑） -- 和我們的頭髮應該怎麼辦 -- （笑） -- 還有如何行為舉止。

現在我在說的規則 是不斷地被文化監測的。 我們被糾正。 而這些基層民警是女性， 因為我們正是這傳統的繼承者。 我們將它傳遞了一代又一代。 此外， 我們總是有種模糊的概念 有些什麼東西在期望著我們。 而在所有這些規則之上， 他們不斷發生變化。 （眾笑） 我們在一半的時間裡不知道發生了什麼事， 所以這讓我們置身於一個非常脆弱的位置。

（眾笑）

現在，如果你不喜歡這些規則， 而我們很多人都不喜歡 -- 我知道我之前不喜歡，我仍然不喜歡， 雖然有一半時間我遵守著它們， 而並不清楚我在遵守它們 -- 還有什麼比幽默更好的辦法去改變他們？ 幽默依賴於社會的傳統。 它將我們所知道的，做了些扭曲。 它隱身於行為守則和社會規範， 而製造出意外效(笑)果， 而這正是如此 能讓人會心一笑。 現在，如果你把婦女和幽默放在一起會怎樣？ 我想你可以得到改變。 因為婦女就是基層， 而且我們最了解傳統， 我們可以把不同的聲音帶上檯面。

現在我開始在 混亂之中畫畫。 我在離這裡不遠的華盛頓特區長大。 歷經民權運動，暗殺事件， 水門事件聽證會，然後到女權運動。 而我覺得我是在透過繪畫， 試圖找出到底發生了什麼事。 然後我的家人也是在一片混亂之中。 而我用繪畫設法把我的家人放在一起 -- （眾笑） -- 用笑聲盡量把我的家人放在一起。 它沒有成功。 我的父母離婚了，妹妹被逮捕。 但是我找到屬於我的地方。 我發現我不需要穿高跟鞋， 我不需要穿粉紅色， 而我能感覺到自己很自在。

當我年紀大一點的時候，20多歲， 我意識到沒有太多的婦女在畫漫畫。 我想，“嗯，也許我可以打破 漫畫界的小小玻璃天花板。” 而我就這樣做了；我成為了一個漫畫家。 後來我又想到，在我40多歲的時候，我開始想， “哦，為什麼我不做些什麼呢？ 我一直喜歡政治漫畫， 為什麼我不用我的漫畫做一些有關的內容 使人們在思考的那些我們一直遵循的愚蠢規則的同時， 也會心一笑？“

現在我的觀點 是一個特別 - （眾笑） -- 我的觀點是特別美國的觀點。 我不能擺脫它。我住在這裡。 儘管我經常旅遊， 我仍然像一個美國女人般思考。 但我相信，那些我說的規則 是普遍的，當然 -- 這每一種文化都有其不同的行為模式 和服飾和傳統， 而每個女人都要處理同樣的這些事， 像我們在美國這裡做的。 因此，我們 -- 婦女，因為我們就是基層，我們知道傳統 -- 我們有驚人的敏銳度。

我最近的工作 與國際漫畫家合作， 這個我很享受。 而它讓我更欣賞 用漫畫的力量 來獲得真相， 迅速和簡潔的獲得問題關鍵。 不僅如此，它可以傳達給觀眾， 不只是經由智識，也同時能深入人心。 我的工作也使我與 來自世界各地的女漫畫家合作 -- 國家，如沙特阿拉伯、 伊朗、土耳其、 阿根廷、法國 -- 我們坐在一起，笑著聊天， 共享我們的困難。 而這些婦女很努力的工作讓她們的聲音 在一些非常困難的情況下被聽見。 但能夠與她們合作我覺得很幸運。

我們還談到 為何婦女有如此強烈的看法， 因為我們脆弱的地位 和我們作為傳統保持者的角色， 我們可以有很大的潛力 成為可變革推動者。 我認為，我真的相信， 我們可以改變這種事情， 每次一笑。

謝謝。

（鼓掌）

my custom made gopro 360 swivel mount

Wake Up Everybody

Wake up everybody
No more sleepin' in bed
No more backward thinkin'
Time for thinkin' ahead

The world has changed
So very much
From what it used to be
There is so much hatred
War and poverty, whoa, oh

Wake up, all the teachers
Time to teach a new way
Maybe then they'll listen
To what'cha have to say

'Cause they're the ones who's coming up
And the world is in their hands
When you teach the children
Teach 'em the very best you can

The world won't get no better
If we just let it be, na, na, na
The world won't get no better
We gotta change it, yeah
Just you and me

Wake up, all the doctors
Make the old people well
They're the ones who suffer
And who catch all the hell

But they don't have so very long
Before the Judgment Day
So wont'cha make them happy
Before they pass away

Wake up, all the builders
Time to build a new land
I know we can do it
If we all lend a hand



The only thing we have to do
Is put it in our mind
Surely things will work out
They do it every time

The world won't get no better
If we just let it be, na, na, na
The world won't get no better
We gotta change it, yeah
Just you and me

It's the god hour
The morning I wake up
Just for the breath of life I thank my maker
My mom say I come from hustlers and shakers
My mom built it on skyscrapers and acres
He said take us back to where we belong
I try to write a song
As sweet as these arms the one the type to bare arms
And wear my heart on my sleeve
Even when I fell in God I believe
Read the days that weave through the maze
The seasons so amazing
Feed them and raised them
Seasons are aging
Earthquakes, wars, and rumors
I want us to get by but
We're more than consumers
We more than shooters, more than looters
Created in this image so God live through us
And even in this generation, living through computers
Only love love love can reboot u

Wake up, everybody
Wake up, everybody
Need a little help, y'all
Yes I do, need a little help

Need a little help, y'all ay
Wake up everybody
Wake up everybody
Wake up everybody

Finally! Twitter-Tax Story Explained in Cartoon Form

Camp Rock 1 - This is me (HD with lyrics)

Lyrics to This Is Me :
I've always been the kind of girl
That hid my face
So afraid to tell the world
What I've got to say
But I have this dream
Right inside of me
I'm gonna let it show, it's time
To let you know
To let you know

This is real, this is me
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, now
Gonna let the light, shine on me
Now I've found, who I am
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding who I want to be
This is me

Do you know what it's like
To feel so in the dark
To dream about a life
Where you're the shining star
Even though it seems
Like it's too far away
I have to believe in myself
It's the only way

This is real, This is me
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, now
Gonna let the light, shine on me
Now I've found, who I am
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding who I want to be
This is me

You're the voice I hear inside my head
The reason that I'm singing
I need to find you, I gotta find you
You're the missing piece I need
The song inside of me
I need to find you, I gotta find you

This is real, this is me
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, now
Gonna let the light, shine on me
Now I've found, who I am
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding who I want to be
This is me
You're the missing piece I need
The song inside of me (this is me)
You're the voice I hear inside my head
The reason that I'm singing
Now I've found, who I am
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding who I want to be
This is me

The Day You Went Away

The Day You Went Away

Well I wonder could it be
When I was dreaming 'bout you baby you were dreaming of me
Call me crazy call me blind
To still be suffering is stupid after all of this time

Did I lose my love to someone better
And does she love you like I do
I do you know I really really do

Well hey so much I need to say
Been lonely since the day
The day you went away
So sad but true
For me there's only you
Been crying since the day
The day you went away

I remember date and time
September twenty-second Sunday twenty-five after nine
In the doorway with your case
No longer shouting at each other
There were tears on our faces

And we were letting go of something special
Something we'll never have again
I know, I guess I really really know

Well hey so much I need to say
Been lonely since the day
The day you went away
So sad but true
For me there's only you
Been crying since the day
The day you went away

The day you went away
The day you went away

Did I lose my love to someone better
And does she love you like I do
I do you know I really really do

Well hey so much I need to say
Been lonely since the day
The day you went away
So sad but true
For me there's only you
Been crying since the day
The day you went away

Why do we never know what we've got till it's gone
How could I carry on
The day you went away
Cause I've been missing you so much I had to say
Been crying since the day
The day you went away

The day you went away
The day you went away

Caroline Casey: Looking past limits

About this talk

Activist Caroline Casey tells the story of her extraordinary life, starting with a revelation (no spoilers). In a talk that challenges perceptions, Casey asks us all to move beyond the limits we may think we have.

Japan Earthquake: Helicopter aerial view video of giant tsunami waves

Japan Earthquake: Helicopter aerial view video of giant tsunami waves

The tsunami 24foot high reached Sendai airport runway after the 8.9 quak...

Scary footage: Tsunami waves raging, buildings burn after 8.9 Japan eart...

TEDxObserver talk on kids and privacy

Here's a video of my talk on kids, privacy and social media ("A Skinner box that trains you to under-value your privacy: how do we make kids care about online privacy?") at last month's TEDxObserver event in London. It was a great day and there were a ton of interesting talks

學校教育扼殺創意嗎？(中文)

Now you can watch it again with transcript (Chinese)

GoPro HD: Arlington Monster Energy Supercross 2011

Supercross takes over Arlington! Check out the awesome footage from Peick, Catanzaro, Sipes, Hewitt, Thomas, Larsen and Byrne.