Political figures who talk a lot about liberty and freedom invariably turn out to mean the freedom to not pay taxes and discriminate based on race; freedom to hold different ideas and express them, not so much.

We should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be.

I think Stockman is an interesting sort of amalgam.

Generous unemployment benefits can increase both structural and frictional unemployment. So government policies intended to help workers can have the undesirable side effect of raising the natural rate of unemployment.

When stock prices are rising, it's called ''momentum investing''; when they are falling, it's called ''panic.''

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy.

Yes, over the centuries economic progress has reduced some gross disparities - modern Americans are relatively unlikely to simply starve to death (though it can happen), so in that sense the gap between rich and poor has narrowed. But the question isn't whether society is, in some sense, more equal than it was in 1900. It's whether it is radically more unequal than it was in 1970. And of course it is.