I don't want to paint a picture of total gloom and doom.

Alaska itself is an unusual state.

The problem is that Islam does not have a pope, so there's no one guy to say, 'This isn't kosher'...Not that he would.

The markets are much more interested in America's long-term trajectory than they are in feeling that there is an acute short-term crisis.

Having your fiscal house in order and having a more manageable macro-economic future is going to be very useful in creating growth.

You know, when the cost of capital goes down, when credit becomes cheap, people start taking greater and greater risks.

Media reporters have pointed out that the paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.