I absolutely am an environmentalist. I am probably more of an environmentalist than most people who live in the world, but I think that comes from my position in the world and that doesn't make me a better person.

Political scientists don't work at banks which is a problem. As political issues become more important for the markets, analysts at banks are asked all sorts of questions they don't have the ability to answer. And if you're getting paid to answer questions as analysts at banks are you never want to be in the position of saying you don't know.

Academics were not a challenge when I was fifteen in college. The challenge was figuring out how to fit in socially.

In environments where corporations become too interventionist and capture regulation themselves, the government must be able to battle back so that the people have a chance.

In China, the state controls the corporations, whereas in the United States, the corporations control the state.

I think that the environment is very a complicated question. I am very sympathetic to people who support the environment who live in the United States. I am very sympathetic to people who don't support the environment who live in a very poor country.

The developed world should neither shelter nor militarily destabilize authoritarian regimes unless those regimes represent an imminent threat to the national security of other states. Developed states should instead work to create the conditions most favorable for a closed regime's safe passage through the least stable segment of the J curve however and whenever the slide toward instability comes. And developed states should minimize the risk these states pose the rest of the world as their transition toward modernity begins.