Former U.S. President Clinton Calls For Solutions To 'An Unstable, Unequal World'

Clinton offered those thoughts and his views on current events in a guest keynote speech at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington D.C. Wednesday. Since leaving office in 2001 Clinton has championed a number of causes around the world, including working to help bring relief to earthquake victims in Haiti and provide medical help to AIDS suffers in developing countries.

Some of his heath-care work has been done in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, started by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Following a keynote from Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner, who touted the competitive advantages of the company’s product lines, Clinton took the stage saying, “I wanted to buy everything.”

Thanks to IT and the Internet, Clinton said we live in “the most self-help society [and] most interdependent age in history.” But in contrast to the quality of life in the U.S., he said, two-thirds of the human race lives on less than $2 a day and for them “life is a guerilla war” where it’s a major effort “just to keep your children from dying before they’re five.”

The former president said most of the problems facing the world today, including terrorism, stem from the problems of what he called a highly unstable world, a highly unequal world, and our unsustainable lifestyles that are leading to climate change.

Clinton said the mission of everyone as citizens of their communities, their countries and of the globe is to address those issues.

During his speech he noted the 17.2 percent of GDP spent on health care in the U.S., which is far above the 10 percent or less in other developed countries. And if the U.S. could spend just half of the cost of cleaning up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on wind power, he said it would make a huge difference in reducing greenhouse gases.

Clinton said the question of how to address these issues will dominate for the next 20, 30 and 40 years and he urged WPC attendees to use their expertise and IT networks – that interdependence – to find solutions.