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.

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

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.

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.

The global financial crisis - missed by most analysts - shows that most forecasters are poor at pricing in economic/financial risks, let alone geopolitical ones.

Having spent 10 years studying emerging markets, I know that you have patterns repeated over and over again. A bubble is like a fire which needs oxygen to continue... when you see there is no oxygen, things change.

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.