Rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power.

Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.

Generous unemployment benefits can increase both structural and frictional unemployment. So government policies intended to help workers can have the undesirable side effect of raising the natural rate of unemployment.

I'm especially baffled by the idea of taking insurance against a U.S. default. If America defaults, we're talking about a chaotic world - Mad Max, more or less - in which case, who imagines that insurance claims will be honored?

Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with no exception I can think of, they use their books to do an end run around the normal structure of scholarship, to preach ideas that few serious economists share. Often, these ideas are not just at odds with the professional consensus; they are demonstrably wrong, and sometimes terminally silly. But they sound good to the unwary reader.

As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.

The habit of disguising ideology as expertise has created a deficit of legitimacy.