The international institutions go around the world preaching liberalization, and the developing countries see that means open up your markets to our commodities, but we aren't going to open our markets to your commodities. In the nineteenth century, they used gunboats. Now they use economic weapons and arm-twisting.

The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.

The momentum today behind the idea of a new global reserve currency reflects, in effect, the rise of the rest in world politics and economics, led by China.

The only people benefiting in Iraq war are George Bush's Jr. friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier.

Similarly, payments for a dead soldier amount to only $500,000, which is far less than standard estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death. This statistical value of a life in the US amounts to circa $6.5 million.

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

Moreover, because we chose to finance the way by borrowing, our deficits and debt has soared, and this means we have less room for maneuver, less money available to stimulate the eocnomy in the way needed.