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.

Coming up with a good idea, with an insight into the way the world works that is really new and that you really believe in, is a deeply satisfying experience.

I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men.

The great thing about fiscal policy is that it has a direct impact and doesn't require you to bind the hands of future policymakers.

But Wall Street people are in fact very smart; they're funny, they're not company men who work their way up the chain.

The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

Simple doesn't mean stupid. Thinking that it does, does.