In American politics, 'Europe' is usually a code word for 'big government.'

The world's central banks and the International Monetary Fund still have vaults full of bullion, even though currencies are no longer backed by gold. Governments hold on to it as a kind of magic symbol, a way of reassuring people that their money is real.

The problem is that groups are only smart when the people in them are as independent as possible. This is the paradox of the wisdom of crowds.

Of course, presidents are always blamed or rewarded for the state of the economy.

The Internet has become a remarkable fount of economic and social innovation largely because it's been an archetypal level playing field, on which even sites with little or no money behind them - blogs, say, or Wikipedia - can become influential.

In the struggle between capital and labor, more often than not capital has won, because the real source of value for most companies has historically been the hard assets that they owned and controlled.

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