[I]n America, at least, we have a pretty good record for behaving in a fiscally responsible fashion, with one exception - namely, the fiscal irresponsibility that prevails when, and only when, hard-line conservatives are in power.

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

When the Fed decides that inflation is too high, they have the tools, and they've shown historically that they have the will, to bring it down. And, it might be painful.

Asset bubbles have happened even without not-so-easy money. And, in a depressed economy, where alternative uses of money are not great, people are going to bid up the prices of profitable corporations and stuff like that.

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

Wealthy individuals bought themselves a radical right party, believing - correctly - that it would cut their taxes and remove regulations, but failed to realize that eventually the craziness would take on a life of its own, and that the monster they created would turn on its creators as well as the little people.

The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.