A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

We must recognise that in an integrated world, trade cannot be divorced from other concerns. We need to promote free trade and serious global efforts with respect to common problems even as we support every nation's right to chart its own course.

One of those disturbing tendencies in academic life is that there is a desire on the part of many in the name of open-mindedness to fall into a kind of relativistic denialism in which all positions are equally legitimate, all positions must be respected, and compromise must be entered into no matter what the starting point or reasonableness of the two parties.

With uncertainty in oil markets, a buildup of speculative pressures and the large U.S. current account deficit, there is a real possibility that Paulson's crisis-management skills will be tested.

It used to be said that when the U.S. sneezed, the world caught a cold. The opposite is equally true today.

If you look at the history of the American capital market, there's probably no innovation more important than the idea of generally accepted accountancy principles.

Most investors want to do today what they should have done yesterday.