People who are complaining about the Fed are people who've been predicting runaway inflation for five and six years, and it hasn't happened.

I'm not sure that the current value of the NASDAQ is justified, but I'm not sure that it isn't.

I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly - that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum.

The economic expansion that began in 2001, while it has been great for corporate profits, has yet to produce any significant gains for ordinary working Americans. And now it looks as if it never will.

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

The trouble with poverty, as an issue, is that it has basically exhausted the patience of the general public.

I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.