We know that advanced economies with stable governments that borrow in their own currency are capable of running up very high levels of debt without crisis.

Consumer spending is now plunging at serious-recession rate ... even if the rescue now in train succeeds in unfreezing credit markets, the real economy has immense downward momentum. In addition to financial rescues, we need major stimulus programs.

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

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

We should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be.

In fact, I'd say that the sources of the economy's expansion from 2003 to 2007 were, in order, the housing bubble, the war, and - very much in third place - tax cuts.

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.