But in the financial markets, without proper institutional rules, there's the law of the jungle - because there's greed! There's nothing wrong with greed, per se. It's not that people are more greedy now than they were 20 years ago. But greed has to be tempered, first, by fear of losses. So if you bail people out, there's less fear. And second, b prudential regulation and supervision to avoid certain excesses.

I think it's true that the 1 Percent or the elite are living in a world of, maybe, excessive privilege, and they don't fully realize how much pain and suffering, how much anxiety exists out there.

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.

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

In an extreme credit crunch, leveraged purchases of gold cause forced sales, because any price correction triggers margin calls. As a result, gold can be very volatile - upward and downward - at the peak of a crisis.

In the history of modern capitalism, crises are the norm, not the exception.

Edward Conard provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.