Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

Global demand for dollars has supplanted demand for manufactured goods and services, resulting in multilateral trade deficits and loss of jobs at home.

The military is focusing only on the short run costs. If they don't provide appropriate body armor, they save some money today, but the healthcare cost is going to be the future for some other president down the line. I view that as both fiscally and morally irresponsible.

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn't go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief.

Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working.

The roots of the crisis in East Asia were in private sector decisions. The biggest problems were the misallocation of investment, most notably to speculative real estate, and risky financing, especially borrowing short-term debt on international markets.

As a rich country, we can, in some sense, "afford" the war. But spending money on the war means that we are not spending money on other things that we could have spent the money on.