Inflation usually helps the economy at large, but not the 1% if wages rise. So the 1% says that it is terrible.

In real estate you can avoid ever having to pay a capital gains tax, decade after decade, century after century. When you sell a property and make a capital gain, you simply turn around and buy a new property. The gain is not taxed. It's called "preserving your capital investment" - which goes up and up in value with each transaction.

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.

Textbooks don't teach people how to avoid paying any income tax. But that's what an army of tax lawyers and corporate tax accountants do.

Actually, high housing prices don't help the economy. They raise the cost of living.

When economists speak of money, they neglect that all money and credit is debt. That is the essence of bookkeeping and accounting. There are always two sides to the balance sheet. And one party’s money or savings is another party

Everybody would be better off if they could buy housing for only, let's say, a carrying charge of one-quarter of their income. That used to be the case 50 years ago. Buyers had to save up and make a higher down payment, giving them more equity - perhaps 25 or 30 percent. But today, banks are creating enough credit to bid up housing prices again.