The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.

But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?

Anyone willing to do what is required to become president of the United States is thereby barred from taking that office. I'm only half joking

I must say, I never expected to see the day where I would be talking about anything other than reducing the debt, I'm running into the tyranny of zero, which is where you can't reduce (the debt) any more

Without the triggers, that tax cut is irreponsible fiscal policy. Eventually, I think that will be the consensus view.

We will have more crises and none of them will look like this because no two crises have anything in common except human nature.