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.

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.

I believe we should build a wall - it might or might not slow immigration but it's worth a try and certainly that would provide political cover for the right when they compromise on other approaches to immigration. On the other hand, I believe there should be a path to citizenship for people who have been law-abiding except for having coming to the U.S. illegally.

At every stage since World War II, people have assumed that what's happening today will happen forever. Universally, that's been wrong. I can't say in which direction but I do think that what we expect today won't be what we'll get in 15 years.

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.

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