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.

The problem is a lot of what is called economics is not economics. It is more ideology or religion.

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

The decision-making process in the White House does not let most issues get up to the President. The Council thought opening up global markets to derivatives that would destabilize other countries wasn't likely to create a lot of jobs in the U.S. and might adversely affect U.S. interests by causing global economic instability.

Trump said we got snookered. That those agreements like NAFTA were the worst agreements ever and suggested that our trade negotiators were snookered by these smart negotiators from Mexico or Africa. It is laughable. I have watched these trade negotiations. We got what we wanted.

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.

My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst.