Since loans are getting more expensive and there's less money available, we're seeing a commensurate decline in growth. Higher costs and lower growth, in turn, translate into lower profits. Figuratively speaking, in the future, we won't be able to run as far or jump as high as we used to.

Facebook and other social networking sites are bringing together spheres that used to be separate. People no longer have private and public lives; the line between the two is becoming blurred.

The problem with our Blackberry society is that hardly anyone has time anymore to have an unhurried discussion about the long-term developments that will change our lives.

For more than 3,000 years, China and India accounted for half of the world's economic output. But then the Industrial Revolution gave North America and Europe 150 golden years. If you take the long-term perspective, our economic dominance has been more of an exception than the rule.

Asia has an army of low-wage laborers to thank for its economic boom.

Everything that individuals ever say or write can be used against them at a later point.

Debt is not intrinsically bad. But I make clear to my children that they should only borrow as much as they will be able to pay back.