In the country, our best years economically were from the 1940s into the 1970s, when we had the best public works - we call it infrastructure today - in the history of the world. Highways, bridges, water and sewer, community colleges and medical research. We don't do that the way we used to.
Paul SolmanA lot of people think, particularly the people who have benefited, that they're entitled to the fruits of their abilities, their labor.
Paul SolmanI have heard that the most valuable thing in today's world, postindustrial world, is the human being's attention and how to get it.
Paul SolmanAmerica isn't Wollman Rink, but I think almost everybody watching, and certainly the people who voted for him, have had frustrating experiences with bureaucrats and bureaucracy, private as well as public, pushing them around.
Paul SolmanMaybe the discipline in North America is just consolidation, right? I mean, it may be that if there were more vigorous pursuit of antitrust in America, there would have more competitors competing on price, and then airlines wouldn't be making any money again.
Paul SolmanDonald Trump says he'll cut taxes and that will make the more productive members of our society more productive still and that he'd create more jobs.
Paul SolmanOne of our needs in a very complex society, where we encounter more people every day than probably our ancestors encountered over their whole lifetime, is our need to very rapidly evaluate other people. And one of the most potent ways of doing that is through our automobiles. So, a car isn't just a thing. It's a set of symbols and associations that we have to figure out in order to understand how we navigate our social worlds with that car.
Paul Solman