Can we break the machine that is imposing right-wing radicalism on the United States? The scariest part is that the media is part of that machine.

So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.

The Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.

I think if you're a liberal, you believe that we all are, at least to some extent, our brothers' keepers, you really believe that we have a sumptuary responsibility to make sure that life is decent for everybody in America, that you believe that society out to be broadly shared, and you believe that you can't have a real democracy unless you have a little bit, at least, of economic democracy.

If you're doing your job right, some substantial group of people [is] going to be mad at you.

Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now.

Social Security is a social insurance program - it is not designed to be the same thing as a 401(k).