GDP tells you nothing about sustainability

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

The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.

When you're facing the threat of recession, you need to have an expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. Pre-Keynesian, Hooverite views are dead everywhere except on 19th Street in Washington.

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history-a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it's crucial to get the history straight.

The Bush administration has been doing everything it can to hide the huge number of returning veterans who are severely wounded - 17,000 so far including roughly 20 percent with serious brain and head injuries. Even the estimate of $500 billion ignores the lifetime disability and healthcare costs that taxpayers will have to spend for years to come.

We could, of course, always make the payments, simply by printing more money - we simply promise to pay people by giving them dollar bills - but that could set off inflation.