The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

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

One might as well try to perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer.

Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow.

I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services.