They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny.

They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny.

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don't have anything useful to say.

Global central banks are working hard to lift their economies through an aggressively easy monetary policy. The ECB [European Central Bank] and BOJ [Bank of Japan] are buying tens of billions of bonds and other financial securities each month in an effort to stimulate their economies, which is pushing down rates everywhere, including in the U.S.

Yes. I don't think it would be appropriate at this point to raise taxes on anyone, certainly not in 2011.

The principal linkages between Japan and the U.S. global economies are trade, financial markets, and commodity markets.