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.

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 are putting their money into treasuries because they worry that the risk of putting their money into the bond market, the stock market or even the money markets is very high.

You're having government spending on the economy being cut almost everywhere. That means that the only source of spending for growth has to come from borrowing from the banking system.

The only way people can repay the debt is by cutting their living standards very drastically. It means agreeing to shift their pension plans from defined benefit plans - when you know what you're going to get - into just "defined contribution plans," where you put money in, like into a roach motel, and you don't know what's coming out.

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.

In order to be an economist these days, you have to participate in this fairytale that somehow we can recover and still make the banks rich. And it is a fairytale.