The Current Discussion: In the future, global prosperity will present more of a threat than poverty, according to a recent Post op-ed. Is this just rich-American rhetoric, or is the world really getting too prosperous for its own good?

There is a huge difference between people living above the poverty line and people being wasteful consumers. To argue that China and India’s prosperity will harm those countries and the larger environment is only partially true. Indeed, the environmental concerns of progress apply to all, whether it be America, China, India or any other nation. The failure of countries like the United States to accept and adopt an environmental protocol that actually works is deplorable. In equal measure, India and China's lack of respect for the environment also places them in the same shelf as the Americans.

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The Current Discussion: If countries around the world are doing so well economically, why are they still catching a cold when the United States sneezes?

In a more interdependent world, we simply can’t ignore the economic wellbeing of the world’s largest economy. A further slide in the U.S. cannot remain an isolated event. The U.S. dollar remains the major reserve currency, with all the major commodities being priced in U.S. dollars – so it is hardly surprising that the weakness of the U.S. financial system will have international ramifications.

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The Current Discussion: The mood at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year was decidedly gloomy, which seems a fair reflection of economic conditions. Let's look forward: tell us what the bright spots might be in the world economy this time next year.

Here are the bright spots that I can see a year from now:

1. The Obama plan will have brought back confidence to the job market and the base economic activity will have improved, in the U.S. and elsewhere.
2. China will have turned to spending more and with its large population, consumer-led demand growth will offset the weakness in large capital expenditures.
3. A psychological return to normalcy will have occurred, with people shedding their fears as they have done with the crash of '87, the 9/11 impact and many more such disasters. People forget, as they have in the past.
4. While the long term financial health of the banking system will take a while to improve, some of the banks will take the lead in supporting consumer credit and corporate lending to ease the pressure of the crunch.

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The Current Discussion: How can we reduce our vulnerability to risks posed by global interconnectedness - from swine flu to financial contagion to terrorist threats? What risks do you see on the horizon?

We are often reminded that we live in a fragile world. At any moment, any of the nuclear armed countries could simply destroy all that is known to exist for humankind and take us back into the Dark Ages. That remains the greatest threat to human progress and determines how nations, societies and people make decisions. The pressure on countries seeking nuclear weapons has increased, but the willingness of existing nuclear states to seek disarmament has decreased.

The moral argument that some states are mature to possess nuclear weapons and others are not is nothing but social snobbery and conceit. We should actively seek total disarmament from nuclear weapons for ALL states. As Utopian as that may sound, the presence of nuclear weapons has actually increased limited wars and conflicts since 1945. Armed conflict has engulfed societies in a more fundamentally damaging war of attrition between nations, societies and religions. This battle for the minds of the next generation is being fought not on the streets and in the trenches, but on the Internet through the quiet subtle manipulation of the minds of young people. This has brought more intolerance to the world, whether right-wing fanatics in the U.S. or Israel or Kalashnikov-toting fanatics in Afghanistan, Pakistan or many countries in Africa.

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