Most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst.

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?

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

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

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.

Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.

Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.