Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.

We have a lot of evidence on what happens when you raise the minimum wage. And the evidence is overwhelmingly positive: Hiking the minimum wage has little or no adverse effect on employment while significantly increasing workers' earnings.

The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.

I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly - that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum.

...instead it seems that business - like weight loss - is a subject wherein hope and fear inspire limitless gullibility.

But where will the Fed find another bubble?

Surely I'm not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff's tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?