The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits.

Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller.

If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market were all going to help smaller companies thrive at the expense of the slow-moving giants of the Fortune 500, apparently you were wrong.

I do think to some extent multitasking is a way of fooling ourselves that we're being exceptionally efficient.

The financial crisis of 2008 was not caused by investment banks betting against the housing market in 2007. It was caused by the fact that too few investors - including all of the big investment banks - bet too heavily on the housing market in the years before 2007.

Tough times have always lent themselves to nativist sentiments and closed-door policies. But in the case of highly skilled immigrants these policies are a recipe for stagnation.

Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.