It is a myth that higher taxes lead to less demand and slower growth. In the first three decades after World War II, US top tax rates on the wealthy were never below 70 percent.

The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.

No economy can continue to function when the vast middle class and everybody else don't have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing without going deeper and deeper into debt.

It's almost as if we have two lobes in our brain. There's the consumer and investor mode, and we're doing better and better at that lobe. But at the producer and seller mode, we have to work harder and harder. And the better we do as consumers and investors - the easier it is for us to choose something better, to exit every commercial relationship - the harder we have to work as sellers and producers. One follows from the other.

We used to be so proud that our country offered far more economic opportunities than the feudal system in Great Britain, with its royal family, princesses and dukes. But social mobility in the UK is higher than in the US. Our social rift is as big as it was in the 1920s.

One of the most difficult things is to get truthful people. Nobody can manage well if they don't have a lot of mirrors around them that are honest, that tell them what they're doing is wrong or wrongheaded or misconceived. And in every large bureaucracy on earth, most people are afraid to tell the boss the truth.

Every organization, no matter who it is, just follow the money.