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.

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

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.

If the President asked you to help, I don't think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn't be effective.

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.

Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms.

Health care is very different from other sectors of the economy in several respects, one of which is the fact that the risk can be very high beyond people's ability. That leads to insurance.