Inflation is certainly low and stable and, measured in unemployment and labour-market slack, the economy has made a lot of progress. The pace of growth is disappointingly slow, mostly because productivity growth has been very slow, which is not really something amenable to monetary policy. It comes from changes in technology, changes in worker skills and a variety of other things, but not monetary policy, in particular.

If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

The best approach here, if at all possible, is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

While rising delinquencies and foreclosures will continue to weigh heavily on the housing market this year, it will not cripple the U.S.

If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes. If you want to understand the economy, study the Depression.