Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with everyday observation.

These debt obligations will simply erode America's standard of living in the future. Money spent to service the debt is money that we don't have to spend on consumption's goods, or on investment in our future.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

But individuals and firms spend an enormous amount of resources acquiring information, which affects their beliefs; and actions of others too affect their beliefs.

One of the real costs of the war is that our security is actually less than it otherwise would have been - ironic, since enhancing security was one of the reasons for going to war. Our armed forces have been depleted - we have been wearing out equipment and using up munitions faster than we have been replacing them; the armed forces face difficult problems in recruitment -by any objective measures,including those used by the armed forces, quality has deteriorated significantly.

American inequality didn't just happen. It was created.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.