Asset bubbles have happened even without not-so-easy money. And, in a depressed economy, where alternative uses of money are not great, people are going to bid up the prices of profitable corporations and stuff like that.

The public has no idea that the deficit has been falling like a stone.

The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.

The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.

Democracy or breakdown in Syria would change the whole Middle East overnight.

Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction.

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?