I think the less fracking there is, the better it is for the economy and society.

We're in a chronic debt-deflation. There's no way we can recover unless you write down the debts. And that's what the IMF basically is implying (and it was explicit regarding Greece), but its not spelling it out, because that's not what can be said in polite company.

One basic myth is that rich people get wealthy by earning income. But that's not how most get rich. Most of the gains of the rich people since 1945 have been "capital gains".

The aim of academic trade theory is to tell students, "Look at the model, not at how nations actually develop." So of all the branches of economic theory, trade theory is the most wrongheaded.

If you have to pay about forty to forty-three percent of your income for housing, you also have to pay fifteen percent of your paycheck for the FICA for Social Security wage withholding. You have to pay medical care, you have to pay the banks for your credit card debt, student loans. Then you only have about twenty-five or thirty-five percent, maybe one-third of your salary to buy goods and services. That's all.

There really isn't a recovery, and no signs of it on the horizon, because people have to pay the banks. It's a vicious circle - or rather, a downward spiral.

Europe is acting in a very self-destructive manner, but is doing so because it's trying to be loyal to the United States.