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.

I don't think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they're what the economy basically needs.

We're at the end of long cycle that began in 1945, loading the economy with debt. We're not going to be able to get out of it until you write down the debts. But that's what the IMF believes is unthinkable. It can't say that, because it's supposed to represent the interest of the banks.

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".

A stand in is a politician who can deliver her constituency to her Wall Street backers. That's what a politician does in America. You get a constituency; you make them believe your promises, and then you turn them over to your financial campaign backers. That's what politics has become and that's as much an art of deception as economics is.

The ideological foundation of today's business schools is that economic control should be shifted out of government hands into those of financial managers - that is, Wall Street.

Deflation means a slowdown of income growth. Markets shrink, new capital investment and employment also taper off, so wages decline. That is what's happening as deliberate policy in Europe and the United States. Falling or stagnant prices are simply the result of having less income to spend.