I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who all share an interest at least in certain kinds of science fiction.

Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.

It should be possible to emphasize to students that the level of employment is a macroeconomic issue, depending in the short run on aggregate demand and depending in the long run on the natural rate of unemployment, with microeconomic policies like tariffs having little net effect. Trade policy should be debated in terms of its impact on efficiency, not in terms of phoney numbers about jobs created or lost.

Tax cuts were not going to be effective at creating jobs, and the job creation record is lousy.

If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist.

I admit it: I had fun watching right-wingers go wild as health reform finally became law.

America's political landscape is infested with many zombie ideas - beliefs about policy that have been repeatedly refuted with evidence and analysis but refuse to die. The most prominent zombie is the insistence that low taxes on rich people are the key to prosperity.