The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.

My clinical psychologist wife of 40 years has always had a close intellectual influence on me. When I was beginning to talk openly in the economics profession about irrationality in decision-making, I received a lot of criticism. Ginny would support my views and remind me that a whole other profession - psychology - studies people's irrational sides.

As I write in 2012 we certainly do not believe that it is over yet, and the worst may be yet to come. Efforts by governments to solve the underlying problems responsible for the crisis have still not gotten very far, and the 'stress tests' that governments have used to encourage optimism about our financial institutions were of questionable thoroughness.

Each profession has its own toolkit.

Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.

There is more uncertainty than usual about job futures because computers are replacing more and more human intelligence, and globalization is proceeding at an accelerating pace.

Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by pure stupidity - or, rather, inattention, misinformation about fundamentals, and an exaggerated focus on currently circulating stories.