Money is not a factor of production. But in order to have access to credit, in order to get money, in order to get an education, you have to pay the banks.

People think of a business cycle, which is a boom followed by a recession and then automatic stabilizers revive the economy. But this time we can't revive. The reason is that every recovery since 1945 has begun with a higher, and higher level of debt. The debt is so high now, that since 2008 we've been in what I call, debt deflation.

When you say "paying the banks," what they really mean is paying the bank bondholders. They are basically the One Percent.

Trump has said that he wants to remove the tax deductibility of interest. If he can do that, fine. But I hope that Trump knows that it's not the President that sets tax policy. It's Congress.

If the economy is growing, people want to employ more workers. If you hire more labor, wages go up.

The concept of productivity in America is income divided by labor. So if you're Goldman Sachs and you pay yourself $20 million a year in salary and bonuses, you're considered to have added $20 million to GDP, and that's enormously productive. So we're talking in a tautology. We're talking with circular reasoning here.

The fact that you have government-guaranteed student loans has created a whole new sector in the American economy that didn't really exist before - private for-profit universities that sell junk degrees that don't help the students. They promise the students, "We'll help you get a better job. We'll arrange a loan so that you don't have to pay a penny for this education." Their pet bank gets them the government-guaranteed loan, and the student may get the junk degree, but doesn't get a job, so they don't pay the loan.