Helga Zepp-LaRouche Keynotes Schiller Institute European Conference, Feb. 21-22, 2009

Europe's Role in the Coming Renaissance

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Thank you, Professor Kaushik. I hope you will also be available for questions, but maybe we proceed this way, that I will say what I wanted to say earlier today, and then I would also like the other speakers back on the podium, so that then people can ask all the questions you may still have, as long as you want.

Well, I gave the title to my speech, "The Role of Europe in the Coming Renaissance." Now, I must say, that it really needs an optimistic person to choose such a title, but I think, obviously, such a renaissance can only take place if you all help to make it happen. Because it is only if we intervene in this absolutely dramatic period of history, and cause a dramatic change in the way people think, that there is any chance to have a renaissance. And that may sound like a gigantic task, but the crisis in which we are right now, and the changes which are about to happen, will be so severe, and so enormous, and most people at this point have not the slightest idea what is about to come down. And therefore, I think if we proceed with a clear plan, you know, and if you think what Friedrich Schiller wrote at tbhe beginning of his History of the Revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, he said that the only reason why he was telling about the story, is to give citizens the confidence that if people work together for a good plan, and that they are courageous in what they are doing, that they can bring down even the worst tyranny.

And I think that that is exactly the spirit which we need. Because, we have now this breakdown crisis of the world economy, which Lyn has been talking about now for over 30 years, that it would come, and is here, now.

The thing which personally is very infuriating to me, and I think also to Lyn — I didn't ask him, but I'm pretty sure it's the case: If you look at what is happening now, where you have mass unemployment, you have governments falling; I mentioned Latvia being the second European government falling over this crisis—it is infuriating, because this all could have been prevented from happening! It is completely unnecessary! It could have been changed, the latest, when Lyn made this webcast on the 25th of July, 2007. And I urge all of you who have not yet watched this, because he said, three days before the "subprime crisis" erupted, "the system is finished, and you have to replace it in the following way." And any solution can not occur on a decent basis if people do not study why could this man predict this? Why was he right? How could he say that? Because if we don't analyze what caused this, you can not find the solution. And Lyn already, in July, before the crisis really happened, gave the solution by calling for the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007, which would have stopped this whole thing.

Now, since that time, 18 months, the crisis has escalated, and now, all of a sudden, panic is setting in. People realize the worldwide auto sector is collapsing. Two days ago, GM announced 47,000 layoffs. Opel — and we are here in Russelsheim, the headquarters of the Opel plant—if Opel goes under, it will be 26,000 jobs in Opel alone, and then you can count another six times that for the suppliers' firms. And that also is only the beginning.

Now, the governments have reacted to this in the worst possible way, by implementing massive bailout packages, stimulus packages, rescue packages, umbrellas, and so forth. And the dimension of this really has been completely unthinkable, just a short while ago. The Obama Administration just imposed a $786 billion stimulus package. That came on top of $300 billion to Citigroup; $700 billion for "TARP"—the Troubled Assets Relief Program; $300 billion for the Federal Housing Administration; $200 billion for the Term Auction facility; $300 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and before that, the Bush Administration had given unfunded Federal guarantees. And over the last six months, officially—and I'm talking about officially—alone in the United States, they have poured $5 trillion dollars into the system! And this was basically on the books, the government to the banks. It is an estimated $20-$25 trillion if you count what was not on the books. I mean, you have to get a sense of the dimension of this, because this is exactly what Ben Bernanke had said once, many years ago, which gave him the nickname "Helicopter Ben," because he said, "before we allow the crisis of the system to occur, we will fly with helicopters over the cities and just dump banking notes." And in another speech, he said, "You know, the Germans in 1923, they were quite backward, because they still had to use the physical printing press, and now we have computers and we can make virtual money and electronic credit creation is much more efficient and quick."

So, well: The British media in the last week had a whole bunch of articles in which they talked about the "Zimbabweization of the financial system." Now, you should know that in Zimbabwe, until last week, the inflation rate was 11.2 million percent. Then, the government cut off just three zeroes, you know, naturally this will be very short-lived, because if you don't change the economic parameters, it will come right back; unless the sanctions, naturally, would be eliminated! So, if the British press is talking about the Zimbabweization of the whole world financial system, we are really talking about what happened in Weimar Germany in 1923, but this time, on a global scale.

Now, you can not underestimate the amount of criminality in this whole thing. Don't trust the bankers, don't trust the economists, don't trust the journalists, and don't trust the politicians. For example: Prof. Kenneth Rogoff, the former chief economist of the IMF, said: "Oh, we have now a deflation" —which means the prices are collapsing, because production is collapsing, the buying power is collapsing, and we have a depression—he said, "Well, we have to fight deflation, and it is better to have 5% or 6% inflation for a couple of years."

Now, that is insane: No economist can say a thing like that, unless he thinks the people are completely stupid. Because you will not have 5% and 6% inflation for a couple of years: You either have a hyperinflationary blowout, or you have a total collapse of the economy. And naturally, in light of the fact that we have approximately—and these are published figures— $1.4 quadrillion in toxic waste in the banks, well, the real danger is that, if they keep doing what they are doing, you will have a continuous escalating collapse of the economy, and then, after all these industries have been wiped out and the whole economy is flat, then the hyperinflationary bubble is pouring out very quickly, as it occurred in Weimar Germany, from the spring 1923 to the fall, and that only lasted half a year.

Now, I talked recently to a representative of one of the Bundestag parties, and he said, "Well, the thinking is this: We have to get through the September Federal election, which is in September, because if we tell people now that their pensions are not safe, they are not going to vote for us. So therefore, let's just get through September, and then we will have inflation for one or two years, and then people will understand that we need a reform." Hmm? Now the problem with inflation, especially hyperinflation, is, it wipes out everything. It wipes out the savings of the little people, it wipes out pensions, health care, and all of these things.

Now, on Friday [Feb. 20], there was an article with a leak from the BaFin in the Hannover paper, saying that the reason why there was such a frenzy around the Hypo Real Estate—because Mrs. Merkel came out several times and said, "No! We have to save Hypo Real Estate," because it's a systemic problem; it is bigger than Lehman Brothers, and remember Lehman Brothers is what triggered this whole thing last September. Now, this paper now reveals that Hypo Real Estate does not have an extension of debt of EU400 billion, but of EU1 trillion euros. Now, that's really incredible.

Now, we are going to see now, a very quick acceleration of this thing. Ukraine, in the last couple of days, the 17 creditor banks—Unicredit, Commerzbank, and so forth—they rushed to make loans, because Ukraine was about to collapse. All of Eastern Europe, right now, is in a similar situation, and that involves not only Eastern European countries, but especially Austrian banks, Swiss banks, and according to Le Figaro, 80-100% of the capital in nine Eastern European countries is foreign: So if these countries default, it's not these countries only, but it is going to be these banks. For example, Austrian banks are most exposed: Erste Bank, Raiffeisen International, Bank Austria, which is a Unicredit subsidiary—they are extended EU280 billion in Eastern Europe. So, if they default, and that's exactly what will hit Austria, and that is 90% of the Austrian GDP. So therefore, an Austrian state bankruptcy is not very far away.

Now, according to the internet newsletter MoneyWeek, the total foreign investment in Eastern Europe is $1,740 billion, that is $1.740 trillion, which is essentially bankrupt. The three Baltic states are in terrible condition; they have enormous deficits. Latvia just collapsed its government because there were riots against the government, and you had already social unrest in most of them. Hungary is a completely terrible situation; it has very high indebtedness. Its credit has fallen by 60%, and obviously the situation is becoming so desperate that Steinbrück, who already two weeks ago still refused any idea that Germany should help in a European rescue plan—because he realized, as Professor Hankel was saying, Germany would be the paymaster for any such scheme, so he refused it.

But then, they had the G8 meeting over the weekend in Rome, and obviously something horrible must have gotten clear to him, because now Mr. Steinbrück, all of a sudden says, "Oh no! There are these poor countries like Ireland and we have to help them!" So he wants to use German taxpayers' money to bail out these countries, which is completely crazy, because it's throwing good money after bad money. And now, all of a sudden—which shows you the irony of this whole thing—the European Union all of a sudden says, "Oh, Mr. Steinbrück is violating this Article 103": Professor Hankel was already mentioning this earlier, which is the no-bailout clause, because no state should finance the debt of another state, according to the European Union, Maastricht, and other arrangements.

Now, this is very bad, because the effect on the physical economy is tremendous. Some of you are too young to remember. But if you are older, you will remember all the traditional firms which have disappeared already. I'll just name a couple of them: Dornier, used to be aerospace industry; Pfaff, they produced sewing machines; Vulcan Shipyard was one of the major shipyards in Germany; Grundig electrical goods; Philip Holzmann, huge construction firm; Schiesser quality underwear; Märklin—every boy knows Märklin — toy trains; Rosenthal; Hertie; soon Dresdner Bank will be gone.

Now, if you just look at the case of Märklin, there you really see, this is not normal economics, this is criminal behavior. Because of a generation change, and a fight among the heirs, in 2006, two locusts took over Märklin. One was a private equity firm called Kingsbridge, and Goldman Sachs. And then, they managed, under the pretext of a recapitalization of the firm, to have, in three years, EU40 million in fees for consulting. Now, it happens that that's exactly the sum over which this firm now is going bankrupt. Also, the mismanagement of this Kingsbridge created a business structure, which made the whole thing complete untransparent; they basically created a holding structure to cover up the financial flows, and a structure which was much too complicated for a middle-level firm, and now, where the insolvency supervisor, whose name is Pluta, he said, such structures are always created if the management wants to do dirty business. You know, they create a Zwischengesellschaft, a holding company, and then the financing goes through that holding company and that way, you diffuse the way how this money goes. And in this case, it was such that he created another firm in Hungary, and all the firms in Germany were highly indebted, because credits were taken, except the plant in Hungary, that had no debt. So, then, they had an amazing amount of rejects for scrapping, Verschrottung, of 5 million per year! Now, the suspicion is that they used this scrap, to sell in the open market, just so.

This smells like a complete fraud. The private equity fund obviously had a completely different agenda: Drive Märklin into bankruptcy, keep the patent, and then keep producing in Hungary after you have made the maximum profit.

Now, I think this is a useful lesson, because, when Lyn said many years ago, that the reason for the present crisis, is the paradigm shift which occurred since 40 years. Well: It was the shift away from producers, toward speculators. But there is something more to it. It's not just speculation: It was a shift to a criminalization of the system.

Now, you all heard recently this case of Madoff, the former head of the NASDAQ in New York, who swindled his clients for $50 billion, not exactly peanuts. He used the famous Ponzi scheme. Now, Mr. Ponzi was this guy from Boston, who in the '20s, discovered the difference in the value of answering letters [international mail coupons] in Spain and in the United States, and he said, look, if we buy these letters in Spain and we sell them in the United States, we can make an enormous profit. So he started to get investors, investors—and none of these investors looked to see if there were enough answering letters to support such a business, you know, because you don't have zillions of answering letters. But they were so greedy to get the two-digit profit rates that they all invested. And all Mr. Ponzi did, was to take the new investment money and pay out the old investors, and this pyramid kept going... until one day it broke.

Now, that's what Madoff did, exactly. In the case of Madoff, his clients were pension funds in the United States, and in Europe, interestingly, monarchies, old-rich nobility, and nouveaux riches. So, it will be interesting to see who that was.

Now, the new case happened: Sir Allen Stanford, who basically had transformed the island of Antigua into what obviously was a drug-money laundering center for all of Latin America, and now it turns out, indeed, he had very close ties to the Mexican drug cartels, who used this tax haven in Antigua.

Now, the major UN anti-drug fighter, whose name is [Antonio Maria] Costa, recently said that since the credit crunch of the banks occurred in August 2007, since that time, the only liquidity available has been drug money, weapons smuggling, and other illegal money. So, you know, do the banks not know that? I talked to a banking source recently who said, "Well, you know, with the credit crunch—do you really think if somebody comes with a suitcase full of money, that the banks will turn him away, when they urgently need the cash?" Well—anyway. So this is why, also, some of the banks hesitated to go under this state umbrella, because if they take state funds, not only occurs the terrible injustice that the board can only earn EU500,000 a year — these poor people! — but naturally, then the state has the right to look into the books, and then they might discover some not so nice things.

But the point I'm trying to make is, don't focus on these individual cases, like Stanford, Madoff, but I think that the whole system has been criminal. Because, all these "creative instruments" which Alan Greenspan invented, these specials in structured investment vehicles, they are Ponzi schemes! Because, when the subprime crisis started, basically after the New Economy bubble had burst in March 2000, then they needed a new bubble. So, at that point, Alan Greenspan drove the interest rates to zero, gave people mortgages all over the place, who had not the income to support it, and it was clear, if you give somebody a mortgage at zero interest rate, the only way how the interest can move is up! And sooner or later, that mortgage will get more expensive, and if people have all of a sudden to pay $500 more, they can not pay, they lose the mortgage, and the whole chain reaction started.

Now, it is funny that the FAZ also last Friday—that's yesterday — had two very interesting editorials. One was called "All Suspect," and then saying: Is everybody criminal? Siemens management; Deutsch Bahn AG, they spied on hundreds of thousands of their employees; the communes, because they all had these dirty dealings; parliamentarians? And then the second editorial was, "About To Detonate," talking about the eurozone. So, what we are talking about here, is not so utopian as many people may have thought a couple of years ago.

So, obviously, the European Monetary Union is about to bust. There is already speculation that the euro may collapse under pressure, because Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Austria, they're paying 2-3% higher interest rates for any credits they take, than, let's say, Germany. So the question is, how long can these countries afford that? So they will have soon the choice to either pay this and go bankrupt, or leave the euro. And if Germany would pay for all of that—Professor Hankel pointed to this—you would have inflation for everybody, and nobody would have anything out of it.

So, we are now at the point we have predicted from the beginning, before the euro came into being, and the crisis which we see in Europe, is really the result of crimes which occurred when the fall of the Wall occurred in '89. Which, as some of you remember, was the great historical chance of Europe to do something completely different! It was completely correct to call it the Sternstunde der Menschheit, "the [star-bright] hour of mankind" in which it would have been possible to completely change the international order—and it was not used! Because we proposed the Productive Triangle—Professor Kaushik mentioned it—which would have completely changed the relations to all the countries! The relations with Russia would have been completely different! The collapse of the '90s would have been not necessary. The situation in Europe would be completely different. And I remember having made many speeches at the time, where I said: "If we make the mistake to impose on the bankrupt communist system, the equally bankrupt free-market economy system, maybe you will have, through primitive accumulation, looting of the former Soviet Union and Comecon for a couple of years, but then will come a collapse which will be much, much bigger, than the collapse of the Comecon." And that's exactly where we are, today.

So, at that point, also, John Paul II, the Pope, made strongly the point, saying that the collapse of communism did not prove the moral superiority of the unbridled free-market economic system, which caused a gigantic freakout at the time, but the Pope was absolutely right.

Now, what happened was that you had assassinations: you had the murder of Alfred Herrhausen, the murder of [Detlev] Rohwedder, and then basically Birgit Breul took over with the Treuhand and privatized every state company in the new states of the former D.D.R. [East Germany], and that was like the dry run for what privatization became, later, through the hedge funds and through the private equity firms.

Then: You had Margaret Thatcher, this evil woman who now is fortunately not able to think any more (not that it's a big difference, but she has now Alzheimer's), and she launched the "Fourth Reich" campaign against Germany and the unification. Mitterrand put an ultimatum to [German Chancellor] Kohl, saying that France would only allow unification, if Germany would give up the D-mark. Attali, his advisor, wrote in a biography about Mitterrand, that he threatened war against Germany, and Kohl, in an interview, said "this was a question of war and peace," to give up the D-mark at that time; and Bush, Sr. basically said, we will only go with German unification, if Germany agrees to self-containment by entering the European Union Maastricht Agreement.

So, since that, you have the destruction of the German economy, you have a lowering of the wages in this country, a weakening of the domestic market, and basically, this imposition of the euro was the evil, which [der Flucht der bösen tat, die vogt bären böses muss gebären [ph]], because all of the demoralization and developments which came afterwards really were the result of that. And basically, the collapse of the domestic market, which we now see means that Germany, which never was allowed to have a strong national identity in the post-war period, the "Wirtschafts AG Germany" ["Germany, Inc."] is now about to dissolve. So, the population, as a result, is more and more demoralized — I mean, you are organizing at the info tables and you realize it every day. People tell you, "Oh, one can not do anything anyway," but this is really the curse of the evil deed which we are suffering from.

Now, as a consequence, then, because there was no vision, the German chance of unification was missed. Well, then you had in the United States, the dissolution of the Glass-Steagall Act, and in 2003, it was already clear that the hedge funds' operations would create high risk: Because it was in 2003 that Mr. Ackermann from Deutsche Bank, already demanded in a meeting with then-Chancellor Schröder, a so-called "bad bank" to put the toxic waste in it, and one year later, a certain group of people met, and they created the German equivalent of getting rid of Glass-Steagall, the "True Sale International," which was the legislation which allowed hedge funds and private equity funds to operate in this country. That basically meant, they gave the locusts a free hand to move and take everything over.

Now, the big problem we have right now, is that the same people who caused all of this to happen, are supposed to be the people who do the reform for the new system. And I think that that can not be. Because you have, for example, right now, the State Secretary in the Finance Ministry, Jörg Asmussen, who is really one of the typical people opening the way for the hedge funds, is in charge of preparing the summit of the G20 meeting which will take place on April 2 in London, where Mr. Brown has made a very cosmetic paper to have a "new global deal," but basically it's the aim to keep exactly the same system with just some cosmetic changes. So obviously, this man Jörg Asmussen should not be in this position, because I have zero confidence that he has the knowledge, or the motivation, to go for real changes.

Unfortunately, also, our new Economic Minister, Herr Guttenberg, basically already came out and said, now he makes the prognosis that the crisis will be over in the Fall—that's naturally after the Federal election. Also, Jörg Asmussen said last July, that he was convinced that the end of the crisis was nearer than the beginning.

So you have people who have no economic competence or knowledge, and for example, the IFO Institute in Munich, which is headed by Professor "Unsinn" [laughter], they published in January the "Consumer Climate Index." Now, this is a highly scientific procedure to make a prognosis, because what they do is they go to 500 businessmen, and they say, "How do you feel this morning? Do you think it will get better, or worse?" And depending on whether these people had a bad evening meal and bad sleep, or they had a good breakfast and feel well, they then say, whatever, and that is then published as a prognosis. So these people have no clue, and they have the wrong method of thinking.

The only exception in Europe is, fortunately, Giulio Tremonti, who is planning to put the New Bretton Woods on the agenda, when Italy will have the chairmanship of the G8 summit—I think it's in June or July—and Tremonti has said many good things, like, that it's only virtual money, this toxic waste, and nobody will lose anything, because they never had anything, so if you take it off the books, no pain actually occurs. So, he also recently came out, and said, inflation is the worst solution to solve this problem.

Now, next Tuesday, on the 24th of February, there will be a debate in the Italian Senate, where basically the three proposals for a New Bretton Woods, one associated with the name of Lyndon LaRouche, the other ones being various degrees of plagiarization of that initial proposal, will be debated and voted on. So that is hopefully one step forward.

But I'm saying to you, it will get worse, and worse, and worse, until Lyn's reforms are being implemented. And I want to give you, now as my Plan B, what will happen to Germany if we don't put Lyn's program through. Can you please show these two pictures?

[Helga showed two animations, with the jungle taking over Brandenburg Gate and the Cologne Cathedral Dome.] That is maybe 50 years from now, if we don't shape up! Can you show the second picture? [laughter] Now, show the other picture [of the jungle overtaking the Ankor Wat temple in Cambodia]. Now, here you see also an old building with a tree growing out, and that is the former capital of Ankor of the Empire of Khmer, which now is taken over by nature. And I just wanted to show you with this photo-montage, what could happen with Germany if we don't shape up.

All right, so obviously we don't want that—I think we have an agreement on that. But I think we have to basically completely change the role of Europe right now. I think if we don't reject the values of globalization—everything which has gone on in the last 40 years—and go back to a Europe of the Nation-States, of a Europe of the Fatherlands, but most importantly, a Europe with a completely different image of man.

Man is not a creature of avoiding pain and increasing lust. It's not a being of maximization of the maximum fun in the here and now, but it's not the idea of having more, possessing more — money, money, money, profit, profit, profit, and have fun at the expense of others. But if we do not come to an image of man as the center of politics and the economy, where man is living up to the idea of being in the image of the Creator. Now, what does it mean? It means that man is replicating the most noble aspect of the Creator, and that is creative activity. Man is capable, according to Nicolaus of Cusa, who, after all, is the founder of the modern nation-state, he's the founder of modern science, man is capable of capax Dei. Now, that means that man is able to participate in God: Now, that means that you can only be your fullest potential as a human being, if you unleash that in you, which is that divine quality, and it expresses itself in creative activities.

Now, Gottfried Leibniz, at the end of the 17th century, made a prognosis of kinds which is really interesting. He said: If at one point in human history, the whole world would be controlled by utilitarianism, and all the governments would be corrupted by it, it would come to a world revolution.

Now, that could happen. I think the worst thing which could happen, is that the world would be going into a kind of Jacobin revolution worldwide, and I don't have a good idea what would come out of that, other than chaos and a lot of dead people! But we are at a complete, new juncture in history. The General [de la Maissonneuve] was talking about the end of an epoch, and it is true: We are at a moment in history which has never happened before! Because you had crises of cultures, and it would go under, and then at another point in the world people would not even know about it, because it would take years to travel, and before people would come back, they would have died. For example, when the Roman Empire collapsed, people in India had no idea. They had the beautiful Gupta period—this was the period in which the most beautiful dramas were written in Sanskrit. You had other periods where one culture would go under, and another one would go up and bloom.

This time, it is completely different: We are, for the first time, truly globalized. We are really in one world, and we have to basically get together out of it, as one world, and that eminently includes, naturally, Africa, which we will hear about more tomorrow.

Now, first of all, we have to reject all the values and paradigms which were the reason for this crisis, and that's not something which is somewhere "out there— everybody has to look, you know, at what habits and what nice things you like which belong to this other world, and then you have to replace it with something completely different.

Now, I'm convinced, that the only way how the world will get out of this crisis, is if in the coming period, at least factions of each country—not everybody immediately, because of the stupefaction which has occurred—but that important sections in each nation and in each culture are going back to the best tradition of their culture. And, you know, universal history, if you look at it as a totality, you had, fortunately, the torch of progress of civilization being given from one culture to the next: you had at a certain point, the Indians being the highest culture; at another point, the Chinese; and still another point, the Muslims; then you had the Italians, you had the Spanish, you had the Americans 200 years ago. So, in a certain sense, all we have to do, is to go back to our best traditions, and then communicate among each other on that level.

Now, in China, and here I allow myself to disagree a little bit with the General, you do have a strong tradition of Confucianism, which can be revitalized. He disagrees, but that's okay: We disagree among friends! You have in India, the Vedic tradition, the Sanskrit which Wilhelm von Humboldt correctly called "the most highly developed language of the world"! You had the Golden Renaissance in Italy; you had, in France, the magnificent tradition of the Ecole Polytechnique and other accomplishments.

Now, if the world comes out of this crisis, and I can only hope that the vision of how bad it is and how bad it is threatening to become, is evoking a power in people, that they fight to change it now.

Well, the only way to get out of it, is if you go back to the ideas of Nicolaus of Cusa, the idea that a concordance in the macrocosm can only be if you have the best possible development of all microcosm, and that each microcosm takes it as its self-interest to develop the other microcosm in the maximum way. These were the ideas which went into the Peace of Westphalia.

And then, you need something else: You have to stop being indifferent. If you remain only a person for myself, and say, "Oh, Africa? I don't care. People in Mexico? I don't care," well, then, we're not going to make it! What you have to start cultivating, coming out of this conference if you haven't done it already, is a passion for mankind, a passion for the other, because only if you have this love for the community of peoples —and I mean all peoples—that we can really unleash the kind of change and movement which is required.

Now, what will be the European role in this? Obviously, we have to reject imperialisms of all kinds, above all British imperialism. Well, I think we need a Europe which has national cultures, as Lyn was saying this morning, where the state is catalyzing the creative abilities of all of its citizens, because it is the greatest source of wealth also for the economy.

Now, European nations have to come back to their senses, because, it is very clear, that we are at a situation where China and India will be the biggest factors in the future: These two countries alone, presently already have a population of 2.5 billion, that's more than one-third in just two nations, and Lyn has written this beautiful book a couple of years ago, Earth's Next Fifty Years, where he basically says what has to be the cooperation of small nations, big nations, nations which have raw materials, nations which have none, landlocked areas, countries on the seaside; and we have to have this kind of long-term, multi-level cooperation on joint economic programs, like the Eurasian Land-Bridge as the cornerstone for the reconstruction of the world economy, but it has to go together with a Renaissance, an emotional change, a cultural Renaissance, and people really have to change! People have to value, not money, but people have to value their creativity! They have to value a fulfilled life of contributing something immortal to the next generation. And I think we can do it.

But you have to help. We all have to work like we never did before. Because our job in the next period, is to catalyze in Europe, the kinds of alliances which will work together with the United States, Russia, China, and India, and then I think there is hope. If not—you better get accustomed to live in the bushes. [sustained applause]

Thank you, very much! So, if the speakers want to come back up for question and answers....