Moreover, as everyone knows, look -- it&#39s energy, not oil, which counts. And higher oil prices mean a greater incentive to invest in energy R and D.此外，正如大家都知道，能源，而不是石油，是最重要的。而且，油价越高，投资新能源研发的动力越大。You can see this in the data. As oil prices go up, energy patents go up. The world is much better equi

Communication walls, I don&#39t have to tell you -- the Internet -- have come tumbling down.通信壁垒，不用我多说，随着互联网的出现也已不复存在了。And of course the iron curtains, political walls have come tumbling down.当然还有铁幕的瓦解，政治壁垒已逐渐消除。Now all of this has been tremendous for the world. Trade has increased. Here is just a l

Alright. Well if larger markets increase the incentive to produce new ideas, how do we maximize that incentive?好。那么，如果市场越大，创新的动力越大，我们如何能最大限度地发挥这一动力呢？It&#39s by having one world market, by globalizing the world. The way I like to put this is: one idea. Ideas are meant to be shared,通过统一世界市场，通过世界全球化。我喜

Here is GDP per capita from 1900 to 1929. Now let&#39s imagine that you were an economist in 1929, trying to forecast future growth for the United States,这是人均国内生产总值从1900年到1929年。让我们想象一下，在1929年，如果你是一位经济学家试图预测美国的未来经济增长率，not knowing that the economy was about to go off a cliff, not knowing that we were

Now you can see some of the reasons why I&#39m optimistic. Globalization is increasing the demand for ideas, the incentive to create new ideas.现在你可以理解我为什么对此充满信心。全球化在增大对创新的需求，这是创新的动力。Investments in education are increasing the supply of new ideas.教育投资使我们产出更多的创新想法。In fact if you look at world history

The first half of the 20th century was an absolute disaster in human affairs, a cataclysm.20世纪的上半叶是人类历史上一个彻底失败的阶段，那是一场浩劫。We had the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War and the rise of the communist nations.我们经历了第一次世界大战，大萧条，第二次世界大战，以及共产主义国家的兴起。And each one of these forces spli

And we can see the tragedy of Africa in the first few bars here. Growth was negative.我们可以看到非洲的悲剧就从这个条形图的前几个条。负增长！People were actually getting poorer than their parents, and sometimes even poorer than their grandparents had been.人民越来越穷，都比不上他们父母的生活水平。有时甚至比他们的祖父母还穷。But at the end of the 20th century, t

But consider the following: if the world as a whole were as wealthy as the United States is now但是，请大家考虑一下：如果整个世界都象现在的美国一样富裕，there would be more than five times as many scientists and engineers contributing to ideas which benefit everyone, which are shared by everyone.那么，将有5倍多的科学家和工程师来贡献创意，这对每个人都大有好处

And to explain why this is so, I have a question.为了解释为什么会是这样，我先问一个问题。Suppose that there are two diseases: one of them is rare, the other one is common, but if they are not treated they are equally severe.假设有两个疾病，一个是罕见的疾病，另一个是常见病。但是如果不治疗他们，后果会同样严重。If you had to choose, which would you rather have: th