Fareed Zakaria

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore.

Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didnt mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it.

— Fareed Zakaria change

Alaska itself is an unusual state.

— Fareed Zakaria self

In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

— Fareed Zakaria sad

— Fareed Zakaria men

— Fareed Zakaria change

I should not be judged by a standard thats not applied to everyone else.

— Fareed Zakaria lie

The United States is going to be a rich country, it is going to be prosperous, but it is not going to be able to take the lead in the next phase of global economic development.

— Fareed Zakaria men

What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and 60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.

— Fareed Zakaria education

When youre failing, theres a very powerful incentive to put ideology aside and just do what seems to work.

— Fareed Zakaria power

The Berlin Wall wasnt the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell.

— Fareed Zakaria war

Politics and power is a realm of relative influence,

— Fareed Zakaria politics

The technological revolution at home makes it much easier for computers to do our work.

— Fareed Zakaria work

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

— Fareed Zakaria war

In a very weak economy, when you say cut government spending, what you mean is youre laying off school teachers and youre de-funding various programs that put money into the economy. This means you have more unemployed people that then draw unemployment benefits and dont pay taxes.

— Fareed Zakaria people

I dont want to paint a picture of total gloom and doom.

— Fareed Zakaria pain

It is absolutely clear that government plays a key role, as a catalyst, in promoting long-run growth.

— Fareed Zakaria men

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.

— Fareed Zakaria power

Street protests in Saudi Arabia might warm our hearts, but they could easily lead to $250 a barrel oil and a global recession.

— Fareed Zakaria war

But as the arms-control scholar Thomas Schelling once noted, two things are very expensive in international life: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail.

— Fareed Zakaria life

I grew up in this world where everything seemed possible.

— Fareed Zakaria world

Whenever someone says the word community, I want to reach for an oxygen mask.

— Fareed Zakaria community

There is very strong historical data that suggests the way societies grow is by making large, long-term investments.

— Fareed Zakaria men

If a senator calls me up and asks me what should we do in Iraq, Im happy to talk to him.

— Fareed Zakaria happy

Americas growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and immigration. The one thing that doesnt seem to have anything to do with Americas growth rate is a brutal work schedule.

— Fareed Zakaria education

If we didnt have the rest of the world growing, the United States economy would be in much worse shape than it is today.

— Fareed Zakaria world

One of the great dilemmas for America will be that American companies will do very well while American workers might not.

— Fareed Zakaria work

Conservatives used to believe in confronting hard truths, not succumbing to comforting fairy tales. Some still do.

— Fareed Zakaria truth

The American dream seems to be thriving in Europe not at home.

— Fareed Zakaria dream

The Web forces me to be disciplined and not to waste time - but before the Web was invented, there were plenty of opportunities to do that anyway.

— Fareed Zakaria time

The American consumer, even today, the weight of the American consumer in the global economy is China plus India doubled. So, its tough to replace that.

— Fareed Zakaria america

I am an American, not by accident of birth but by choice. I voted with my feet and became an American because I love this country and think it is exceptional.

— Fareed Zakaria love

I very much want to be in the business of creating content, of doing stories all over the world rather than figuring out what the business model is for Newsweek on the iPad, although thats very important work as well.

— Fareed Zakaria work

If you go to India the roads are being built almost entirely with private sector money and by the private sector. If you look at many, many countries in Europe thats how theyre doing it.

— Fareed Zakaria money

One of the things that has been very difficult in Libya is the sense of uncertainty - the sense that they havent actually finished the revolution, that there was still a great deal of uncertainty. That uncertainty has made Libya harder for business in terms of oil and other things as well.

— Fareed Zakaria business

What happens in the media is the cult of personality. The brands who have been forced to cut their staff have been forced to take on the brands of journalists.

— Fareed Zakaria personality

Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic. It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order.

— Fareed Zakaria art

I think that liberals need to grow up.

— Fareed Zakaria think

Things happening around the world are affecting you and me.

— Fareed Zakaria world

American influence is not what it used to be.

— Fareed Zakaria america

Having your fiscal house in order and having a more manageable macro-economic future is going to be very useful in creating growth.

— Fareed Zakaria future

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.

— Fareed Zakaria writing

I think it is quite untrue that it is standard journalistic practice to name the interviewer when quoting from an interview.

— Fareed Zakaria true

Id be kidding if I said that I predicted the financial collapse.

— Fareed Zakaria

It hasnt been easy to find American citizens who are willing to pick fruit in 110 degree weather.

— Fareed Zakaria america

Its not possible for two countries to be the leading dominant political power at the same time.

— Fareed Zakaria time

My friends all say Im going to be Secretary of State. But I dont see how that would be much different from the job I have now.

— Fareed Zakaria friends

The Chinese economys still not that much of a consumer economy.

— Fareed Zakaria economy

The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society.

— Fareed Zakaria history

The markets are much more interested in Americas long-term trajectory than they are in feeling that there is an acute short-term crisis.

— Fareed Zakaria america

The people who watch Fox are not going to watch CNN. You know, lets be honest.

— Fareed Zakaria people

The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.

— Fareed Zakaria ya

There is a huge crisis of employment in America, in the Western world in general.

— Fareed Zakaria men

Whenever societies do well, they believe that there is something in their cultural DNA that made it happen.

— Fareed Zakaria believe

You know, when the cost of capital goes down, when credit becomes cheap, people start taking greater and greater risks.

— Fareed Zakaria art

CNN is getting smarter, and you can feel it in the stories, you can feel it in the depth with which theyre covered, the kinds of people in terms of guests who are brought on air, the way in which issues are discussed.

— Fareed Zakaria art

The one show that I will continue to be a guest on is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, if hell have me. Its not competitive with CNN and its too much fun.

— Fareed Zakaria war

which is not to pick sides but to explain what I think is happening on the ground. I cant say, This is my team and Im going to root for them no matter what they do.

— Fareed Zakaria think

Religions are vague, of course. This means that they are easy to follow -you can interpret their prescriptions as you like. but it also means that it is easy to slip up -there is always some injunction you are violating. But Islam has no religious establishment - no popes, no bishops - that can declare by fiat which is the correct interpretation. As a result, the decision to oppose the state on the grounds that is insufficiently Islamic belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

— Fareed Zakaria religion

ISIS is a formidable foe, but the counter forces to it have only just begun and if these forces, the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga, American air power, the Syrian Free Army, work in a coordinated fashion, it will start losing ground. Also, please keep in mind that ISIS does not actually hold as much ground as the many maps flashed on television keep showing. Large parts of those territories that ISIS supposedly controls are vacant desert.

— Fareed Zakaria art

Culture follows power.

— Fareed Zakaria power

There is no way to turn off this global economy, nor should one try. Every previous expansion of global capitalism has led to greater prosperity across the world.

— Fareed Zakaria world

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the United States succeeded in its great and historic mission--it globalized the world. But along the way, they might write, it forgot to globalize itself.

— Fareed Zakaria time

Thanks to the Communist Party of China, we now know the path to poverty alleviation is Capitalism.

— Fareed Zakaria art

If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years, it is surely that military intervention can seem simple but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.

— Fareed Zakaria past

Democracy is also a single ideology, and, like all such templates, it has its limits. what works in a legislature might not work in a corporation.

— Fareed Zakaria work

It is likely that human beings will find fulfillment and will be rewarded for the same qualities that they have been rewarded for for 5,000 years. And that is intelligence, hard work, honesty, a sense of character, loyalty to family and friends, and above all, love and faith. If you are trying to decide what you should do, those are the things you should do. And you know it.

— Fareed Zakaria love

The problem is that Islam does not have a pope, so theres no one guy to say, This isnt kosher...Not that he would.

— Fareed Zakaria islam

If you listen to the political discourse in America today, you would think that all our problems have been caused by the Mexicans of the Chinese or the Muslims. The reality is that we have caused our own problems. Whatever has happened has been caused by isolating ourselves or blaming others.

— Fareed Zakaria reality

On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq, [Bushs] assumptions and policies have been wrong. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw.

— Fareed Zakaria hope

Intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, precisely because they lead rather than follow.

— Fareed Zakaria respect

The twentieth century was marked by two broad trends: the regulation of capitalism and the deregulation of democracy. Both experiments overreached.

— Fareed Zakaria men

A nations path to greatness lies in its economic prowess and ... militarism, empire, and aggression lead to a dead end.

— Fareed Zakaria lies

We have the leading companies and the leading sectors in the advanced industrial world, we have an incredibly dynamic society, and we have high levels of entrepreneurship. And we have the best universities in the world. ... We also have impeccable credit. What we dont have is a political system that can take the simple measures to deal with our short-term deficit.

— Fareed Zakaria society

Legitimacy is the elixir of political power.

— Fareed Zakaria power

The United States needs serious change in its fiscal, entitlement, infrastructure, immigration, and education policies, among others. And yet a polarized and often paralyzed Washington has pushed dealing with these problems off into the future, which will only make them more difficult and expensive to solve.

— Fareed Zakaria education

It all looks American because America, the country that invented mass capitalism and consumerism, got there first. the impact of mass capitalism is now universal.

— Fareed Zakaria america

...foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.

— Fareed Zakaria theology

Alaska itself is an unusual state.

— Fareed Zakaria self

Strip away the usual hot air, and bin Ladens audiotape is the sign of a seriously weakened man.

— Fareed Zakaria man

America washes its dirty linen in public. When scandals such as this one hit, they do sully Americas image in the world. But what usually also gets broadcast around the world is the vivid reality that the United States forces accountability and punishes wrongdoing, even at the highest levels.

— Fareed Zakaria reality

If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills [and] Fifth Avenue ... would have become targets long ago.

— Fareed Zakaria envy

Germany is a fascinating role model. The Germans have maintained their manufacturing edge despite being a high-tax, high-regulation economy. Why? Because the government really set about ensuring that it maintained funding for technical training, technical advancements and programs. It made a concerted effort to retain high-end, complex manufacturing -- the kind of BMW model, if you will. And theyve done that so successfully that Germany, which has a quarter of Americas population, exports more than America does.

— Fareed Zakaria success

Some have said that the clash between Catholicism and Protestantism illustrates the old maxim that religious freedom is the product of two equally pernicious fanaticisms, each cancelling the other out.

— Fareed Zakaria freedom

We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washingtons elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Todays world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

— Fareed Zakaria war

As the United States continues its slow but steady recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nobody actually wants a massive austerity package to shock the economy back into recession, and so the odds have always been high that the game of budgetary chicken will stop short of disaster. Looming past the cliff, however, is a deep chasm that poses a much greater challenge -- the retooling of the countrys economy, society, and government necessary for the United States to perform effectively in the twenty-first century.

— Fareed Zakaria society

Its really difficult to have your voice heard and feared when you both speak softly and carry a twig.

— Fareed Zakaria fear

Media reporters have pointed out that the paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepores essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.

— Fareed Zakaria time

My friends all say I’m going to be Secretary of State, [but] I don’t see how that would be much different from the job I have now

— Fareed Zakaria friends

There is very strong historical data that suggest the way societies grow is by making large, long-term investments.

— Fareed Zakaria men

Politically Incorrect was the name of the show Bill Maher hosted in the 1990s. Its also an apt description of the man himself. Now host of - HBOs hit show Real Time, I find Maher to be one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life in general out there. It doesnt mean I always agree with him. I always find him funny, though.

— Fareed Zakaria life

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai...

— Fareed Zakaria world

California has often led the country, indeed the world, in the technology, consumption, trends, lifestyles, and of course, mass entertainment. It is where the car found its earliest and fullest expression, where suburbs blossomed, where going to gym replaced going to church, where forces that lead so many to assume that direct democracy is the wave of the future - declining political parties, telecommuting, new technology, the internet generation 0 are all most well developed in this vast land.

— Fareed Zakaria life

France placed the state above society , democracy above constitutionalism, and equality above liberty. As a result, for much of the nineteenth century it was democratic, with broad suffrage and elections, but hardly liberal. it was certainly a less secure home for individual freedom than was England or America.

— Fareed Zakaria freedom

Im largely in favor of financial reform.

— Fareed Zakaria

No successful political transition can take place without leaders and movements that demand and press for freedom.

— Fareed Zakaria success

Foreign policy commands attention when its crisis management. A street revolt breaks out in Egypt or Libya or Kiev and everyone asks, how should the president respond? Now these are important parts of Americas role in the world, but they are essentially reactive and tactical. The broader challenge is to lay down a longer-term strategy that endures after the crisis of the moment.

— Fareed Zakaria art

But now, we are becoming suspicious of the very things we have long celebrated - free markets, trade, immigration, and technological change. And all this is happening when the tide is going our way. Just as the world is opening up, America is closing down.

— Fareed Zakaria change

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