Honest talk about the deficit is risky. Voters are more enthusiastic about the abstract notion of deficit reduction than about the painful details of accomplishing it.

A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it's better to produce 'real things' than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers.

I think something that forces financial institutions to write down underwater mortgages, I think, would be a sensible thing to do.

A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here's where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.

Recent research suggests that New Deal programs may actually have had their primary impact on the economy by influencing consumer and business expectations of future growth and inflation.

If increasing income equality is the goal, it might be wiser to put money into infrastructure than to subsidize manufacturing. Construction also pays good wages, but with lower educational requirements. And America's infrastructure needs are enormous.

What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it.