I believe, unlike people that are totally free-market, laissez-faire fundamentalists, that there is an important role that the government can play - one, in providing public goods, whether it's education, health care, or other things, and two, supervising countercyclical policy - stimulus, whether it's monetary, fiscal, or otherwise.

We're essentially continuing a system where profits are privatized and...losses socialized.

The gains from technology must be channeled to a broader base of the population than has benefited so far.

If we didn't have greed, market economies wouldn't be as innovative as they are. But in my view, greed has to be contained by the fear of losses, so there has to be a system where, if you take too much risk, you go into bankruptcy. You don't systematically bail out people who take excessive risks.

Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers. This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.

I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don't think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries.

I'm not a pessimist by nature. I'm not someone who sees things in a bleak way.