Markets work best when there's lots of information available and a historical track record to go on; they excel at predicting things like horse races, election outcomes, and box-office results. But they're bad at predicting things like who will be the next Supreme Court nominee, as that depends on the whim of the president.

I tend to have a hard time working on pieces long before they're due. That's why I think the fact that I write a column is really good for me - the column has to be done, and there's no getting around it.

No decision-making system is going to guarantee corporate success. The strategic decisions that corporations have to make are of mind-numbing complexity. But we know that the more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will get made.

A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal you're making, don't make it.

Of course, politicians always say they're just describing their opponents' positions, even if they are in fact offering absurd caricatures, if not outright lies.

The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.

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.