Economists get very uncomfortable when you talk about virtue and vice. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of columns with numbers. But I would argue that there are big virtue effects in economics. I would say that the spreading of double-entry bookkeeping by the Monk, Fra Luce de Pacioli, was a big virtue effect in economics. It made business more controllable, and it made it more honest.

Expect hogs to eat a lot more in the presence of a lot of hog wash.

A business model that relies on trickery is doomed to fail.

Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

Over the long term, the eclipse rate of great civilizations being overtaken is 100%. So you know how it's going to end. (Laughter) I'm more optimistic about the staying power of what's good in this country. But just because you have a wonderful spouse doesn't mean you should treat her badly. You have the feeling that some of the old virtues [that made this country great] are lessening. But there's so much good and so much strength left that I would not expect this country to suddenly founder.

Creative accounting is an absolute curse to a civilization. One could argue that double-entry bookkeeping was one of history's great advances. Using accounting for fraud and folly is a disgrace. In a democracy, it often takes a scandal to trigger reform. Enron was the most obvious example of a business culture gone wrong in a long, long time.

In Gillette's case, they keep surfing along new technology which is fairly simple by the standards of microchips. But it's hard for competitors to do. So they've been able to stay constantly near the edge of improvements in shaving.