The problem is no longer that with every pair of hands that comes into the world there comes a hungry stomach. Rather it is that, attached to those hands are sharp elbows.

An intriguing paradox of the 1990s is that it isn't called a decade of greed.

The failure of market catallactics in no way denies the following truth: given sufficient knowledge the optimal decisions can always be found by scanning over all the attainable states of the world and selecting the one which according to the postulated ethical welfare function is best. The solution 'exists'; the problem is how to 'find' it.

Mea culpa, mea culpa. MIT and Wharton and University of Chicago created the financial engineering instruments, which, like Samson and Delilah, blinded every CEO. They didn't realize the kind of leverage they were doing and they didn't understand when they were really creating a real profit or a fictitious one.

Economists have much to be humble about.

What we know about the global financial crisis is that we don't know very much.

Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.