America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

I'm quite optimistic when it comes to the capacity of our people to have an honest discussion about what's really going on. What do you think John McCain's candidacy was about? And the early days of Bill Bradley's candidacy? People are hungry for a genuine, no-spin set of ideas and truths. They want their leaders to tell it like it is. There is a great demand for this. Politicians continually underestimate the ability of the American public to understand what's happening to them and what the real choices are.

Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation.

We're now moving toward a radically different economy. You absolutely can't have a distribution oligopoly. The new oligopolies - and I think there will be new oligopolies - will be oligopolies of trustworthiness. Microsoft, Amazon, Schwab, and other brands will dominate psychic space, not shelf space.

I don't think that our problem, our jobs problem, is fundamentally a problem of trade. I think it has much more to do with the fact that we have not sufficiently educated our population. We have not got out of this great recession with adequate stimulus and adequate fiscal and monetary policies over all.

Cutting taxes is not bad. But if you cut taxes on the wealthy, which is what they wanted to do, you're not helping people who need better schools and better infrastructure and healthcare. You're basically robbing the middle class and the poor to provide tax cuts to the rich.