The tendency for politicians to claim credit for favorable news is as natural as flatulence in cows.

In politics, there's a fine line between too much conviction and too little.

Probably the only people left who think that economics deserves a Nobel Prize are economists. It confirms their conceit that they're doing 'science' rather than the less tidy task of observing the world and trying to make sense of it. This, after all, is done by mere historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and (heaven forbid) even journalists. Economists are loath to admit that they belong in such raffish company.

We should balance the budget. If government programs are important enough, we need to pay for them with taxes or make cuts in lesser programs. We've lost that discipline entirely. It seems prudent to avoid the possibility that the people who own our debt will start to worry the U.S. won't pay. That would raise how much it would cost the U.S. to borrow, which in a national emergency, like a war or pandemic, could be critical.

We have arrived at socialized medicine in America. I do not report this as either a good or bad event but simply as something that has happened with hardly anyone realizing it. This is the first result - and probably the most important - of the national health care debate launched last week by President Clinton. Our politics and economy will never again be the same.

When you become 70, you can't deny that you're on the downhill. But I keep doing what I've been doing. If I retired, what would I do? I'd brood about my kids and I'd play around with my investments, which would probably cost me.

One intriguing subplot of the economic crisis is the failure of most economists to predict it. Here we have the most spectacular economic and financial crisis in decades - possibly since the Great Depression - and the one group that spends most of its waking hours analyzing the economy basically missed it.