All the risky things that were happening back in ’06 and ‘07 are back again to the same level, if not more. So we are in the beginning of a credit bubble, but just the beginning.

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

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.

A currency serves three functions: providing a means of payment, a unit of account and a store of value. Gold may be a store of value for wealth, but it is not a means of payment. You cannot pay for your groceries with it. Nor is it a unit of account. Prices of goods and services, and of financial assets, are not denominated in gold terms.

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

I believe investors should invest for the long run, so I don't buy and sell. I usually maintain the classic index of global equities, diversified U.S. and global and emerging markets, and when the risk is larger, I diminish the amount in global equities and put more into liquid assets - but very irregularly.

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.