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When this crisis began you talked a lot about these larger issues, tackling corruption and tax evasion. And then there was this demand from the markets for immediate cuts. Did that force you to abandon efforts on some of the bigger structural changes? What the markets were saying is we've heard this, we don't believe you. Greece has lost its credibility. What I was saying all along is we have to bring back our credibility. That did in fact work. Credibility for Greece has come back. Of course, those are short-term changes. We have to get down...
...underlying causes we had very much pinpointed and understood way before the elections. So in fact, it only strengthened our will - and my will - to say we really have to change this country: Issues like how the public administration is run, issues like lack of transparency, clientelistic party politics (which would mean doing favors to your friends and voters and so on, rather than putting down rules) which undermine a sense of rule of law. (See pictures of immigration in Europe...
...deal with this? In fact, I think you'll see in these crises two different types of political responses. One, which I would say is a more polarizing and more populist and even scapegoating kind of leadership role. And one which says, no, lets get down to the real issues, lets work together, lets be more collective in our response. Let's be more democratic in our response...
...maintain a social welfare system, and see that as part and parcel of being competitive. That is the Nordic countries, or the Scandinavian countries, where they have a very important welfare system, but they're at the top, most competitive countries in the world. I often like to say that the sense of welfare and security that a person needs, sometimes also helps in making that person more innovative, more risk taking, more entrepreneurial. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...say with reasonable certainty—and this back-of-the-envelope calculation is certainly not meant to be definitive—that with 25,000 domestic applicants to Harvard, out of 1.5 million applicants in the country, approximately one in 60 of these individuals applied to Harvard this year. For us, these odds are a strong case for humility...