Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, I would like to say in response to the last comments that you made, that it is both my experience…”

“Well, first of all, I would like to say in response to the last comments that you made, that it is both my experience over the last 25 years and my observation of our history and global economic history that there is no economic model that succeeds forever, not in a business or in a country, because the very nature of the economy is the dynamic. So I think that Korea should not, in effect, rewrite its own successful history. You have--this country has done some very great things in the last few decades since the end of the Korean war. And no economic model succeeds forever. I mean, keep in mind, today people come up to me and they say, all over the world, ``Oh, America is doing so great.'' Well, you know, 10 years ago people were saying, ``Oh, America is in decline, and they can't do anything right.'' Things change. So the trick is how to make the necessary changes and preserve the purpose of economic activity, which is to advance the quality of life, to lift people's lives. So that's just a general observation. Now, I think Chairman Park made a very valuable point, which is that it takes time to change an organization if you wish to preserve the integrity of the organization and you want it to work and also if you don't want to hurt a lot of people. He cut the size of his operation by 50 percent, so if you want to do that, it takes time. From my point of view, my impatience on the restructuring of the big five, I would say it should take time, and we should be patient, but they should begin. They should begin. That's what we're interested in. Are they going to begin? From the point of view of President Park over here who was talking about his new business and his partnership with Motorola, I believe that one of the things that we should be very sensitive to in the United States, particularly dealing with Korea, since we have been through a lot of this, is if your big companies are going to restructure and reduce employment to increase profitability and their ability to compete, then I think it is very important that there be systems in this country that encourage the creation of more new companies. That's what you were talking about. In the U.S., one of the most important parts of our economy is the so-called venture capital economy, where we have new companies being created all the time or smaller businesses being expanded all the time. And so I think it's important, even though there have been a lot of bad bank loans and people are worried about bad bank loans and everything, we have to realize, when all this is said and done, you must still have a good credit system here where people who have something to do should be able to borrow money to do it. I think that's very important. The last point I would like to make is that--just about what all of you have said--is to go back to what Dr. Sohn said about the women. The more rapidly an economy or a society changes, whether it's going up or going down but especially if it's going down, the more strains will be put on family life. Now, I believe at least, the most important work of any society is the raising of children. And in a funny way, we have opposite problems. Many people believe in America too many of our parents are in the work force, so nobody is home with the children. But in most Asian societies it's a good thing if you can have more opportunities--job opportunities for women so there can be some more balance and more income to raise the children. So I think it would be a very good thing--I don't have the answers to this. What I have seen, though, in our own experience, is that there is no perfect answer, but there is a good process. And a good process is one that takes full account of the interests and feelings and ideas and opinions of the women of the society. That is, what would be the best answer for Korea would not be the best answer for Thailand, would not be the best answer for the United States. But there is a good process. And in too many places in the world today, women are used economically when it's convenient and then discarded when it's not, and their voices aren't heard. And I think that's a mistake. So I think what you're doing is very important. I wonder if Senator Baucus or Secretary Koh would like to say anything. [Senator Max Baucus praised South Korea's accomplishments since the Korean war.]”