Disasters redistribute money from taxpayers to construction workers, from insurance companies to homeowners, and even from those who once lived in the destroyed city to those who replace them. It's remarkable that this redistribution can happen so smoothly and quickly, with devastated regions reinventing themselves in a matter of months.

The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich.

The oil market is especially sensitive even to a hint of expansion or contraction in supply.

What an economy really wants, after all, is not more investment per se but better investment. It wants capital to flow to companies that will create value - not in the form of a rising stock price but in the form of more goods for less cost, more jobs, and rising wages - by enhancing productivity.

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.

Congressional Republicans themselves have vehemently defended the idea that preexisting conditions should not be used to deny people insurance.

I think people don't understand compound interest because typically no one ever explains it to them and the level of financial literacy in the US is very low.