Buying a home wouldn't make much sense if house prices were likely to decline further; no one wants to catch a falling knife.

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.

Buying a home wouldn't make much sense if house prices were likely to decline further; no one wants to catch a falling knife.

The Tea Party was born out of the disgust many Americans felt early in the financial crisis upon learning that the federal government was even contemplating reducing the principal on some troubled mortgages.

I'm a registered Democrat.

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

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