Given our inevitably incomplete knowledge about key structural aspects of our ever-changing economy and the sometimes asymmetric costs or benefits of particular outcomes, a central bank... need to consider not only the most likely future path for the economy but also the distribution of possible outcomes about that path. They then need to reach a judgment about the probabilities, costs, and benefits of the various possible outcomes under alternative choices for policy.

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

We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock-boxes' around the trust fund real.

Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal.

Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern.

What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so.

I'm always amazed that my wife can handle different subjects - one day politics, the next day foreign policy. And she always has so much fun doing it. We make a good team.