Amherst is a liberal arts college, committed to providing students with a broad education.

World War II was really unusual, because America was in the Great Depression before. So the war did help the US economy to get securely out of this decline. This time, the war [in Iraq] is bad for the economy in both the short and long run. We could have spent trillions in research or education instead. This would have led to future productivity increases.

When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he told the American people that he would be a different type of Republican, that he would take on the political and economic establishment, that he would stand up for working people, that he understood the pain that families all across this country were experiencing. Well, sadly, it was just cheap and dishonest campaign rhetoric that was meant to get votes, nothing more than that.

I often felt myself the lone voice in discussions suggesting that basic democratic principles be followed. I recommended that not only should workers' voices be heard, but they should actually have a seat at the table. You have the old boys' club discussing how the old boys' club should be reformed.

China's accumulation of reserves is a result of the IMF's mismanagement of the Asian financial crisis a decade or so ago. If countries know they can't rely on the IMF to help them, their best defense is their own reserve cushion. In a time of spreading global recession, too much emphasis on savings in surplus countries like China can impede prospects for global growth.

They [political leaders ] thought the only problem was the banking system, and if they fixed the banking system, all would be fine. But the banking system and the mortgage problem were symptomatic of some deeper problems, and evidently they still haven't recognized those deeper problems.

There was a hope then by some people that what we call trickle-down economics would work. That if you made the economy pie bigger, everybody would benefit. Twenty-five years after NAFTA, we know that that is not true. We should have known then that it was not true.