that we should provide greater insulation or protection from competition for selective parts of the u. s. economy. moving in this direction would, i believe, be a fundamental mistake. more than ever before our fortunes are linked to those of the global economy. if anything, we need to become more open, not less ; more open to trade in goods and services, but also to investment, to people and to ideas. global integration is not the solution to all our problems, but acting to restrict it or to insulate us from its consequences would damage our capacity to grow and to adapt to change, and these costs would make it harder, not easier, to deal with our longer - term challenges. to the extent we are reluctant to remove restrictions or subsidies in the united states, we make it easier for the forces in other countries to block reforms from which we would benefit. the world has a lot of experience with the costs and benefits of protection, and the balance of judgment on those questions has not significantly changed even with all the changes that technology and policy have brought to global trade. economies that are more open have generally seen more rapid growth, both in incomes and in employment. economies that are less open have generally grown less rapidly. openness itself, of course, is not enough. our capacity to adapt to change depends in part on the effectiveness of government policy in a range of important areas. education seems the most obvious of these, but policy in health care, in public infrastructure, and many other areas will also play an increasingly important role in determining the relative strength of the u. s. economy in this more integrated world. the u. s. educational system combines the strengths of high completion rates for secondary education, a rich variety of post - secondary school educational options, and exceptionally strong elite universities, with the weaknesses of substantial unevenness in the quality of public education, and large disparities in the educational opportunities available to those of modest income and the relatively rich. by some estimates, students from families in the bottom half of the income distribution account for only 10 percent of all places in our elite universities. an education system should be judged by how it serves the majority of the population, not just the performance of its best institutions. and as technological progress continues and global integration increases, our system will be judged by how good a job it does equipping a broader range of students with the skills commensurate with these challenges. in communities across the country, there are encouraging efforts at

about the dangers of speculative excess. indeed in a system that encourages dynamic development, imbalances requiring correction are inevitable ; but the severity of the current economic slowdown is the worst since the great depression of the 1930s, in part because of globalisation of national economies. that is why the international labour organisation has warned that some 50 million jobs worldwide could be lost ; that is why all countries including botswana are affected ; and that is why the responses have to be coordinated, to some extent. it is now widely acknowledged that the current crisis can be attributed to three major factors. first, the sharp rise in commodity prices, especially oil and food, was always likely to put a brake on economic expansion. second, the uneven global growth resulted in unsustainable huge deficits in some countries and corresponding chronic surpluses in others. therefore, painful adjustment was inevitable. third, risk management in financial sectors of major economies was lax, so much so that some of the most respected names in banking accumulated large volumes of non - performing assets. these factors were also substantially interlinked. the virtual disregard for prudential lending by the financial sector led to the emergence of unsustainable macroeconomic imbalances and rising commodity prices. central banks, too, were on the wrong side of the action, as their formulation and implementation of monetary policy paid insufficient attention to the risks of over - valuation of assets, particularly in the housing market ( s ). in the event, the consequences have been traumatic, especially since september 2008, when the global banking system risked collapse starting with the erstwhile us headquartered lehman brothers. although this has been averted through unprecedented action by governments and central banks, the subsequent curtailment of lending has aggravated economic slowdown. the seriousness of the “ credit crunch ” is such that the international monetary fund has revised its economic growth forecast for 2009 repeatedly, from 3. 8 percent to only 0. 5 percent. the economies of advanced countries are forecast to shrink by an average of 2 percent this year. for sub - saharan africa, the 2009 outlook has fallen from 6. 8 percent to 3. 5 percent, and the volume of global trade is expected to fall for the first time since the early 1980s. to address the problems, many central banks have reduced interest rates to historic levels, while governments have undertaken unprecedented spending and financial support of private sector entities. it is not surprising, therefore, that the g20 and similar groupings are considering proposals to coordinate revisions to